


A Home at the End of the World

by Garlandriel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-01 17:07:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garlandriel/pseuds/Garlandriel
Summary: Hermione becomes Bellatrix's horcrux. Begins right after Bill and Fleur's wedding. DH and beyond.





	1. Black House - August

“ _You get on a train, you disappear._

_You write your name on the window, you disappear._

_There are places like this everywhere,_

_places you enter as a young girl,_

_from which you never return.”_

Louise Glück

 

“ _Jason: If you eat my heart, you swallow my pain_ ”

Euripides

 

The girl in the meadow isn’t the first thing Hermione sees, but she’s the first thing she’s aware of.

It’s odd because all of it – the swaying inland sea of blue flowers in which Hermione stands, the dark shapes moving in the surrounding forest, even the flat, overcast sky – all of that – should have commanded her attention first.

Instead Hermione knows, with her first breath of flower-heavy air, that behind the bigger of the moss coloured boulders to her left, a child is curled up, arms wrapped tight around her knees. The girl keeps up a steady stream of whimpers and exhalations. Hermione knows she should help; it’s what she would usually have already done, what any Gryffindor would do. But at the same time she has the primal urge to run – to get as far away as muscles and magic will take her. She’s terrified for no reason she can put a finger on.

“H- hello?” She finally manages, pitching her voice just above a whisper.

The crying stops. Out of the corner of her eye something shifts in the tree line. For a moment Hermione sees the Weasley’s party tent, Fleur and Bill spinning at the center of a throng of happy guests, the crinkle of Ron’s eyes as he grinned –

A dream. That’s it. She’s fallen asleep after Bill and Fleur’s wedding over stimulated and overtired from the endless preparations, Ginny and Gabriella are asleep next to her – then why doesn’t she remember past the dance? Past the silvery shape on the dance floor-

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Hermione looks down to the voice with a start. Its owner is a girl of about ten, her sharp face framed by dark hair, having appeared without sound at her elbow and frowning thunderously at Hermione.

“How’d you-“ Hermione begins.

“You need to go,” Even though her cheeks are still wet with tears, the girl manages a haughty snarl, which tugs at Hermione’s memory oddly “I don’t want you here.”

“What are you-” Hermione starts again, now somewhat indignantly because this is her dream and it’s not like she wants to be here. Not like she has any idea where _here_ is, or how she got here for that matter-

The thing that’s been moving in the corner of her eye chooses this moment to pounce. But instead of fur and teeth, Hermione feels only a curious _push_ on her chest. She looks down to see the girls small hand against the crimson of her party dress, only it seems to be melting right into her skin.

And then the thing pounces again, only it’s already inside her chest and it’s tearing its way out and tearing Hermione apart in the process.

 

***

 

Professor McGonagall considers Hermione over her square glasses.

They are sitting in her office at Hogwarts, and the late afternoon sun streams through an open window. Hermione sips at her weak milky tea. It has a lovely calming taste. Everything in the wizarding world tastes richer and truer than its muggle counterpart. She’s been marveling at that since first year.

McGonagall also has a cup that sits half-empty and steaming in front of her. Outside, Hermione can hear Quidditch practice in progress, even though this office faces the lake. Ron’s whooping cheers are accompanied by Harry and Ginny’s laughter.

Hermione smiles and leans back in her chair. She loves Hogwarts so much in this moment that it makes her eyes burn. Why wouldn’t she have come back to the school for her seventh year? Why was there a question of not returning?

“Miss Granger?” McGonagall’s voice is sharp and Hermione brings her attention back to their conversation. “Did you hear what I said?”

She briefly considers pretending she had, and then shakes her head instead. It's McGonagall and there's no reason to lie.

“Sorry Professor,” She smiles some more – it’s McGonagall and there’s no reason to lie “I was miles away.”

“You have to stay vigilant.”

Hermione frowns. That doesn’t sound like her head of house at all; that sounds more like-

Alastair Moody sits in her professor’s chair.

“Constant vigilance!” He barks and Hermione flinches and spills tea on her chest. It scalds. His eye swirls wildly in its socket and she feels her stomach turn, as the familiar noises of Hogwarts fade and-

Hermione sits up, almost falling off her narrow cot in the process. For a moment she grapples with disorientation because this room too is suffused with afternoon light. Nothing else brings McGonagall’s office to mind though.

She falls back on her elbows on a narrow cot, in a narrow room with grey wooden walls. There are no tapestries, no pictures at all actually to speak of, and certainly no tea.

Hermione’s shaking, even though her entire body feels clammy. Her red party dress is soaked with sweat. Instead of Quidditch practice all she hears is the high-pitched wail of the wind. It hurts her ears.

A hand pushes at her torso, forcing her back into the thin, holey bedclothes. “Mudgirl doesn’t know what’s good for her.”

Hermione has a brief glimpse of what has to be the oldest house-elf she’s ever come across. His breath ghosts across her face as he presses her down; she sees that instead of teeth, he has a mouth full of writhing maggots. She has enough strength to force a quailing breath up her throat, before –

***

The next time Hermione surfaces it’s dark and her throat feels like someone poured all the sand from the Sahara down it. Her tongue has a strange dry patch on it. She’s also warm. Unbearably so.

 **Water**.

It’s the only coherent thought she can hold. Waterwaterwaterwater – another Hermione seems to be babbling inside her as she works herself up to opening her eyes. They feel like they’ve been plastered together with gummy glue.

She manages a thin squint, and sees dusty wooden floorboards beyond the edge of her bed. They’re streaked with a pale corridor of moonlight. She aims her feet for that. 

Waterwaterwaterwaterwaterwater – a wave of nausea hits her as soon as she puts her weight on the balls of her feet.

Hermione is swept right back under. She thinks she feels her head hit the edge of the cot. But it’s a transient pain.

 

Already far behind her.

***

Its night when she wakes again, and there’s somebody holding her hand.

She’s fascinated, both by the cruel rings on the long tapered fingers that trap hers, and by the look of extreme concentration on Bellatrix Lestrange’s face as she mumbles a low incantation under her breath.

Hermione tries to take stock of her body and finds that she can’t. She’s outside of it all again. This doesn’t feel like bobbing along under the Imperious curse though. It feels like being deep underwater, wrapped in a powerful current, and looking up at the vivid, distorted world above.

They could be a painting Hermione thinks: she anchored to her bed at the bottom of the sea, Bellatrix and the room, high above the bright scalloped surface, chanting her spells.

As if she can feel her thoughts, Bellatrix looks up sharply. Her eyes are black pits. For a second the spell is broken and Hermione feels her horror rushing back. The edges of her vision darken. Just before she is pulled back under, Bellatrix resumes her murmur.

It’s like a warm hand has reached out of the darkness and taken hers.

*** 

Hermione wakes, feeling hollow-boned and fragile, but alert.

She lets herself glory in the return of her agile mind for a few minutes. _To transfigure live creatures the wand must be turned at a 45 degree angle_ \- Hogwarts has 346 staircases, all of them on a bi-weekly rotational axis- _they say a woman’s hair is her glory,_ her Dad smiling as she showed him her report card, _but yours is your brain poppet_.

She’s alone in her little room again. She takes sluggish stock of its contents. There is a beat-up chest of drawers and a scuffed writing desk with a spindly chair. In another corner somebody has dumped a pile of black-fringed lampshades. The ceiling slants and has black mould growing on it.

She closes her eyes again.

   ***

Weak light and the pitter-patter of rain come from a tiny grimy window when Hermione surfaces next. She lies still a few more minutes before slowly pushing the scratchy blanket off her legs. _Determine your location Granger!_ Moody’s voice growls at her. But it’s fading already, fading like the dream, and any hope she had for safety.

Gingerly she slides out of bed. After hovering her bare feet over the cold ground a moment she slips into her shoes and stands. No nausea… just a slight grogginess she’s usually associated with sleeping too long. Hermione lets her eyes adjust to the gloom a moment longer then tiptoes over to the window.

The view is a surprise. Endless rooftops stretch out in the late summer shower. Some of the roof chimneys are puffing smoke, some are home to roosts of clucking city pigeons, and a few even have a satellite dishes. _It’s London!_ Hermione is almost completely sure of it.

The cobbled alley below her window leads to a street home to a thick slew of afternoon muggle traffic. There’s a little fenced park just behind the honking cars and, if Hermione squashes her face against the cold glass, she can make out the tops of the first swaying willows and birches.

Hermione wishes she’d spent more time in London. She can’t even begin to guess where she is, although she has strong suspicion that she’s in a better part of town than Grimmauld Place ever was. For a few moments she just stands there, face against the window, mentally urging the bus’s occupants, or even one of the passing pedestrians to detour down the cobbled alley. They don’t as much as give it a passing glance.

Hermione supposes there must be a charm to keep out curious explorers. That probably explains why she can’t hear the street either. It’s just the whistling of the wind for her.

She tries not to deflate too much. She’s in London and all she has to do is leave this house to step back into the safety of a muggle crowd. Maybe with a bit of luck she could even make it back to Grimmauld Place without her wand. Buses still run, Dark Lord or no.

Her hand ghosts where her wand would usually be sticking out of her hair. She liked to wrap her hair in a lopsided bun around it when she studied. Vine and dragon heartstring. Ten and three quarter inches. Good for transfiguration. She probes back in her memories to when she last had it. Nothing. Then an image rises. A black leather boot neatly snapping her wand on a wet grass floor. Hermione shivers.

A gust of wind rolls over the rooftops, pitching as a high wail into her room. The pigeons on the neighbouring roof squash closer together. Hermione shivers and looks down to see she is wearing nothing but her party dress and a thin cardigan. The whole outfit has really seen better days by now. The dress hem is frayed and the fabric is dirty and partially shredded near her torso. Her shoes are muddy and grass stained. There’s an odd rust coloured stain on the left one.

She rubs her arms and looks over to the chest of drawers squatting in the corner of the room. There could be a boggart in there. That would seem like the Death Eater thing to do. But she finds that the thought of a fake Professor McGonagall berating her about failed classes doesn’t scare her much. If there’s a boggart in there _\- well let it do its worst_. She’s cold and there might be a jumper.

A sharp sting where she’s rubbing her forearm brings Hermione out of her reverie. The inside of her right cardigan sleeve is stained with blood. Near the edge of the fabric she sees what looks like a clumsily carved ‘M’. The wound underneath seems to have fused with the fabric, and after a few increasingly painful tugs, she gives up.

Wrapping her hand over the raised ‘M’, she turns her attention back to the room, and tries to work out how long she’s been here. She must have had a terrible fever. She concentrates harder and is rewarded with a flash of the leather-skinned house-elf, and Bellatrix Lestrange sitting by her cot. She shrinks from both memories, but not before another violent shiver hits her.

 _Okay_ , Hermione thinks, mimicking McGonagall’s sternest tone, _first things first_. The bureau with the possible jumper, and the possible boggart. Right.

She pulls open the top drawer and finds it empty except for a faded rat skull. She closes it quickly again. The second drawer has a few old Death Eater propaganda leaflets ( _Pure blood & Pure hearts_\- really?) but in the third, she strikes lucky.

The robes are ancient, and probably designed with a wizard in mind, but they are heavy and perfect. She wraps the edges over her bare legs and instantly feels, not just warmer, but safer. It’s an illusion, but one Hermione clings to. She wonders again what she’s in for here. Starvation? Torture? Mind games? So far it seems like the Death Eaters dumped her here, bizarrely nursed her through the illness and then, what? Forgot about her?

The thought spikes some righteous anger. She may not be Shacklebolt, or Tonks or even Harry- but they should think twice before thinking she can’t do them any harm. Especially Bellatrix. The witch is so stuck-up it’s probably never occurred to her that a lowly mudblood could attack her with or without a wand.

_Well._

Hermione spends a very satisfying minute imagining tearing out every strand of Bellatrix’s hair at the root, or kicking in those disgusting teeth, and snapping that awful wand just like the Death Eater snapped hers-

Right until a sudden queasiness puts a stop to her increasingly vicious train of thought. It feels like heartburn. She used to get that sometimes as a little kid when a sport teacher managed to coerce her into setting foot in the school gymnasium. She hasn’t felt it in years.

When it finally passes Hermione takes another few gulping breaths, and makes for the door with watering eyes. She needs a bath. And water. And food. And she’ll have all three if they expect her to survive whatever stupid game this is. She’ll bite and shriek and be the worst prisoner they’ve ever had. _I’ll tear this room to shreds._ The ideas stop her short for a moment with their animal ferocity.

 _Where the bloody hell did that come from?_ Hermione shakes her head and gives the doorknob a perfunctory turn, that’s more of an angry tug really, not expecting it to do anything. In her mind she’s already running through what to do next – _Alohomora?_ No wand. _Kicking the door down?_ Worth a try but likely doomed to failure- when the door opens with no more resistance than a slight creak.

For a moment Hermione can only stand on the threshold in shock. This is either the most relieved, or the most offended she’s ever been. She can’t decide.

Palming the carved letter again, she steps out into the hallway and quickly closes the door behind her. For a moment she stands in the half gloom, letting her eyes adjust, and casting out all senses for any sign of her captors. She relaxes her shoulders marginally when she feels nothing in the corridor but dusty silence.

The corridor walls are warped and bulge outwards. It’s colder than her room. A few old gaslight-like scones still glow dimly on through the passage. Hermione guesses they are powered by magic. Someone a long time ago had put up evergreen wallpaper, but the black mould from her ceiling has been at work here too, and she can only spot strips of the erstwhile pattern.

There are three other doors, but Hermione suspects they lead to similar rooms as hers and has no desire to disturb the rodents she hears scratching in there. Her robes drag behind her and only catch once on a loose nail in the floorboards. She bunches them up around her knees to descend the thin attic staircase that leads to the house proper. She takes a cat-like leap down the last three particularly rotten steps.

The next floor is cleaner, but also lined with closed doors. It isn’t until Hermione reaches the grand foyer of the house that she sees daylight again. It’s weak and warbled through the two stained glass panels set on either side of the front door, but there’s a bright slash of light underneath the thick double doors leading off the ground floor. Hermione trips down the main staircase as quickly as she dares. The carpet muffles her slippered steps. Her hand is outstretched and nearly touching the door when a voice speaks behind her.

“You’re finally awake.”

Hermione turns to meet the hard gaze of a leathery old house-elf. He’s half hidden in the arch of a servant’s passage, but steps forward, baring his teeth in what might vaguely be called a smile. They are stumpy, and remind her of maggots. 

 _Mudgirl_ , she thinks disjointedly, _he was the one who pushed me down_.

He must be as old if not older than Kreacher. He’s lanky for a house-elf. Around his waist he’s tied a ragged fragment of an old black rag. Hermione would bet every book she owns that it had once belonged to a Death Eater robe.

“Madame Lestrange won’t like that cloak at dinner.” He snaps a knobby finger and the belt sash unwinds itself from her waist and the cloak tugs itself off her. Hermione too dazed at first makes to reach for it, but it zooms out from under her fingers and disappears into a hidden wardrobe that clicks smartly shut.

When Hermione looks back to the house-elf, his smile has imperceptibly become genuine. For half a moment anger flares within her, like a flash of a far-off light tower - but she masters it, catching a glimpse of his equally gnarled bare feet. He’s probably just as sane as Kreacher.

“I’m sorry” she begins, slowly, unsure of what game is being played here. “Who are you?”

“Pentus,” There’s a reedy note of pride in his voice now. Hermione likes this even less “Head house-elf of the most noble house of Black.”

“That’s umm... that’s really-” she finally stutters out, surreptitiously sneaking a glance around the gloomy entrance hall.

Empty. But for how long? 

Somewhere in the back of his throat Pentus makes a noise of disgust. Hermione thinks he barely restrains himself from spitting at her feet. “Weak blood- clouds the brain. The mudblood is barely able to talk!” His eyes sweep up her frame disdainfully, and Hermione fingers self-consciously at the faded robes. “But Madame Lestrange has given strict orders, even though her noble parents would turn in their graves if they knew.” He scowls at her stained shoes.

 _The Noble House of Black_. Right. Well, there’s about a thousand places she’d rather be. She looks around, reassessing. There’s still afternoon light coming from the left side doors, if she could just- 

The dry sound of laughter snaps Hermione out of her planning. Pentus laughs in dry individual syllables, sucking in harsh breaths in between _“HA. Ha. Ha._ ”

Hermione freezes, resisting the urge to shove past the nasty little git, thinking of S.P.E.W and Dobby and all the injustices he must have gone through. It’s a tough battle.

“The mudblood believes it can escape..?” He doubles over, this time only managing to wheeze with amusement. 

Hermione has a vision of how very satisfying it would be to give him a sharp, quick kick. Her right leg is already tensing when she catches herself. What the hell is the matter with her? Kreacher had said and done worse on an hourly basis in Grimmauld Place. She had scolded Sirius and the Weasley clan daily for their reflex cruelties. She palms the letter engraved into her arm.

Pentus meanwhile has recovered marginally. He wipes the remaining tears away, before fixing her with a smug once over. “You’re not presentable, but you are to wait in the family dining room.” He turns and opens the door leading further into the house, not out of it.

“Who am I waiting for?” Hermione asks, already half-anticipating the answer.

“Madame Lestrange of course. Come along now.” Pentus gives her a very mean smile over his shoulder “You do want to eat?” 

Hermione wishes she could refuse on principle, but at the thought of food her stomach seizes, and she actually feels a little faint. There’s also something too easy about the light under the door. There’s something off about waking up in a Death Eater stronghold and being treated like a guest. Too easy. _Something happened._ Hermione follows Pentus.

She finds herself, walking through the doors behind Pentus, at a table in a dining room narrower than wide. There’s a side table with a pitcher of water and some matching antique crystal glasses. Hermione moves forward, unmindful of Pentus, unmindful of anything but her sudden horrible thirst, and drains the water straight from the decanter.

The table has been set with covered serving platters. Hermione hiccups warm water, as she smells roast potatoes and ham. She reaches to take the lid off one of the smaller steaming containers and is rewarded with a smart shock of magic. She pulls back her hand and examines her smoking fingertips. Wards around food? _Honestly?_

Pentus still watches her. An ugly smile plays around his rotten teeth. The phantom anger from earlier is back. It’s black and vast, and it frightens her in its alien power. She takes a few steadying gulps of ham-infused air, and forces it down.

“You are to wait for Madame Lestrange.” With a final sarcastic bow Pentus apparates out of the room. Hermione hears the lock click softly.

Another door, at the far end of the dining room opens at almost the same moment. Bellatrix Lestrange pauses for a moment at the door, sweeping her hooded eyes over Hermione. She has changed into an elegant evening dress. Hermione can see the suggestion of a corset beneath the embroidered pattern. She can see more skin than she’s altogether comfortable with, really. Even Fleur wouldn’t be able to pull this off. But it suits Bellatrix, right down to the pushed out curve of her pale breast.

Bellatrix approaches Hermione. Hermione attempts to look bold and heroic and all that. Bellatrix smirks slightly. She reaches for Hermione and for a tiny moment Hermione thinks they’re going to hold hands again. But Bellatrix grasps her forearm, bringing the scarred letter up into better light. She traces the carved ‘M’ with a sharp fingernail. Then she rips back the sleeve. It hurts. Hermione winces.

MUDBLOOD

Hermione stares at the letters as they begin to bleed again. Bellatrix clicks her fingers and the bleeding stops. In front of Hermione’s eyes the cuts knit together, until the letters look like scars she’s had for years.

“Not my neatest work.” Bellatrix sighs after a moment. “You made me too irate for craftsmanship I’m afraid.”

“Why haven’t you killed me?” Hermione is absurdly proud that her voice doesn’t shake. She sounds almost bored.

“Don’t be overeager - I might still change my mind.” Bellatrix’s voice is soft. Almost thoughtful. She drops Hermione’s arm.

“Are you hungry pet?” She asks over her shoulder, sauntering over to the side-table and lifting one of the lids. She runs a delicate finger over the steaming meat. Hermione can see the grease stain on her thumb when Bellatrix brings it up to her mouth.

Hermione frowns over her grumbling stomach, and composes her face into a blank mask. “No.”

“Hmm?” Now something like annoyance flits across the older woman’s face “We’ll see how you feel tomorrow then. Back you go.” There’s a _pop_ as Bellatrix apparates to her side, grabs her arm with greasy hands, slight squeezing sensation, then they are back in her little attic room. Hermione barely catches another glimpse of Bellatrix as she vanishes again.

Alone in her freezing rooms, she deliberates for a moment, then grabs the thin holey excuse for bedclothes and wraps them around her shoulders. The smell of ham still lingers. Her stomach feels stretched and tight from the water.

She gives the room another once over. Bed. Chamber pot. Writing desk. Chest of drawers. Barred and tiny window. She opens all the drawers again. Apart from the rat skull and the propaganda leaflet she finds nothing substantial.

The bars are placed far enough apart to barely accommodate her shoulder if she twists it just so, say nothing of the rest of her body. The door to her room has been locked. From the outside. Hermione turns slowly in the middle of the room. There’s nothing.

She sits down on the bed. The mattress is too thin, and the bedclothes offer no real warmth from the growing evening chill. It’s still light out, but by Hermione’s estimation it must be nearing nine o’clock.

She shifts around in the bed so she may see the most amount of pale evening sky through the bars. If she tilts her head like so, she can pretend she’s back in the Burrow, Ginny is snoring next to her, and all she has to worry about is destroying pieces of Voldemort’s soul, and whether Ronald really fancies her or not.

Hermione closes her eyes, and tries not to think about anything.

 

***

 

It’s two days before Bellatrix gives her another chance.

The first day Hermione occupies herself with remembering, chapter by chapter, word for word, _Hogwarts: A History_. She knows Ron will get a laugh out of that, and she looks forward to telling him about it.

When she sees him again.

Which she will.

The second day she tries to do the same with _Macbeth_. She’s read it every year since she was seven, (and oh how _obvious_ her old fascination with the witches is now) and has never had any trouble calling it to mind. But in her attic room at the top of the Black house, Hermione feels her memory stumble over words, forget whole characters, and it’s was barely afternoon when she gives up. If she could just have a little bit of water…

She tells Pentus so when she thinks she hears him skulking outside her door, but he doesn’t answer.

In the wee hours of the third day, Pentus apparates into her room. He sets down a ceramic jug of stale water, and a slice of hard bread topped with dusty corned beef on the writing desk. Then with another loud _crack_ he’s gone.

Hermione pushes herself shakily up of the bed, and collapses in the desk chair. She gulps down half the water first, then starts on the bread and meat. It’s stuff you wouldn’t feed the mangiest dog. It tastes like heaven. Pentus returns again at lunch with stew, which Hermione all but inhales.

That evening the door is unlocked. Hermione hears the click like a gunshot in the quietness of her room. She pushes down the handle with shaking hands a few moments later, but there’s nobody outside.

She pulls her hair back into a bun. She unpicked one of the rosettes on her shoes, and she uses that as a makeshift ribbon to tie it back. She’d like a bath too, but one of her rituals for focus would have to do for now.

Nobody meets her in the corridor. Nobody meets her in the entrance hall. She’s glad. She smashed the ceramic jug against the bars of her window, but she wasn’t looking forward to actually stabbing anyone with the two long shards she’d picked out. The front door is locked. But that’s fine. The real test will be if there’s any wards.

Fred and George were not summer teachers Hermione willingly chose, but she’s glad of them now, ridiculously glad. The three bobby pins she’d fished out of her hair she’s filed down as best she could. She picks at the big lock methodically, feeling the edge of panic if she does anything but think of this as a learning exercise. Somewhere in the house someone slams a door. There’s footsteps. Hermione feels her focus slip, she fumbles the pins-

And _click_. The front door swings open. A gust of wind catches her face. The noise of the busy street on a mild late summer day is wonderful. Hermione scrambles off her knees, steps over the threshold, and closes the door behind her. There’s a loud noise, Hermione jumps slightly, but the driver just leans out to curse a motorcyclist, and honks his horn again.

Hermione takes the steps two at a time. Someone bumps into her. She catches a brief flash of a middle-aged businessman; he frowns at her, before continuing down the street. Two uniformed muggle schoolgirls giggle as they pass her. Another car honks, this time at her. When did she step on the road? That’s right. The park. The shade of the birches. That’s what she wanted. She makes it across the road unscathed.

Hermione stops at the park gates. It’s surreal. She can see her hand wrapped around the iron gate, fingernails still a slightly chipped red from where Gabriella painted them before the wedding, and behind it the park, full of paths, full of ways to lose Bellatrix. But she can also see the blue flowers. Her knees feel like jelly. Another Hermione seems to be chanting _something happened, something happened_ \- but what?

It takes only a little bit of probing before her memories start to flicker in front of her eyes. The wedding. Ron calling her name, with that horrible squeak in his voice that only appeared when he was really terrified. Grabbing Bellatrix and holding her back to give her friends time to escape –

Someone is leaning against the railings next to her. It takes Hermione a moment to recognize Bellatrix, wrapped in her black travelling coat, face half hidden under a scarf, watching the muggle crowds passing on the street behind her.

“Something on your mind poppet?” Bellatrix says, not even looking at Hermione. A guy on rollerskates zooms past them. Bellatrix’s eyes track him with disgust.

“Something happened-” Is all Hermione can manage. Bellatrix gives her a sharp look.

“Better get back inside then” She answers finally “We wouldn’t want anything else to happen to you.” 

Hermione turns back to the park. The paths are still there. She should be on one of them, and far away from here by now. Why isn’t she?

“Something happened,” she says again, to herself this time, and very quiet.

 

***

Dinner is glorious. Hermione can’t ever recall enjoying lightly buttered bread so much, or plain old roast chicken, or potato salad and broccoli. She eats until her plate is empty.

Bellatrix doesn’t join her for dinner. When at last Hermione sets down her fork Pentus is at her elbow almost immediately, and all but rips the dishes out of her hands. She dabs at her face with a fancy cloth napkin just to annoy him. He piles the dishes and then vanishes with a foul look in her direction.

Behind her the door slams, and she hears the click of Bellatrix’s heels. Hermione flinches. Her careful hold on normalcy flickers and she clasps her hands together to stop the tremors. She clears her throat and begins-

“I wanted to explain-“

Bellatrix enters her field of vision. Hermione frowns. Without her travelling cloak she looks distinctly worse for wear. Her clothes are not just artfully deranged but actually torn and muddied in places. Her hair is full of leaves and twigs, and there’s a big multi-coloured bruise forming across one sharp cheekbone.

Bellatrix’s left hand dangles loosely at her side, holding her wand almost like an afterthought. Her scraped fingers are wrapped loosely around the evil looking piece of wood. Her black eyes rake up and down Hermione’s frame again and again. Hermione’s stomach does a funny little flip.

“How did you get out of your room muddy?”

The question is deceptively mild, but every hair on the back of Hermione’s neck rises. She sits up a little straighter. “The door was open” She pauses “I assumed you...or Pentus-” Her vocal chords feel like rice paper.

“Liar” Bellatrix hisses.

She advances slowly towards where Hermione sits, wand raised and head cocked to the side like a suspicious child. “I put those wards up myself - no wand-less mudblood could have simply walked through them” She spins around slowly regarding the whole room with sharp eyes.

“Was there somebody else here?” Hermione mutely shakes her head, getting a very bad feeling about this turn in the conversation. “Are you sure muddy? My husband didn’t pay you a visit?” Bellatrix bares her teeth in a terrible smile “He’s always preferred filth like you over nobler stock. Your kind’s ill-breeding has always gotten my dear Rodolphus’ blood up”

Bellatrix taps her lip and considers Hermione again. “Don’t worry muddy, I don’t mind,” She leans down and traces the edge of Hermione’s jaw with her wand. “If it keeps his grubby hands off me he can do anything he likes with you.”

Hermione has little time to marvel over this unwanted insight into the Lestrange marriage before Bellatrix presses her wand a little harder into her cheek. A bolt of pain settles around her wisdom teeth like a clamp. Bellatrix giggles.

“You know there are so many delightfully insidious tortures that are overlooked for the Crucio curse,” She pushes again and the blinding toothache expands through Hermione’s nerve endings right into her skull, making her eyes water. “But you’ll never have to worry about me turning unoriginal mudbaby, I promise” Hermione lets out a little sob when it feels like the curse will push her eyeballs straight out of their sockets.

Satisfied, Bellatrix removes her wand and straightens up. She frowns down at her dress, probably noticing for the first time the ruined state it’s in.

Hermione meanwhile is failing to regain her composure. The pain is fading- but only slowly. She touches her face and is surprised to find blood coating her fingertips. She must have a pretty spectacular nosebleed.

“I’m sorry” Hermione mumbles around the clot of blood blocking her nose “I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to leave my room” Merlin, can she be any more pathetic? But she never wants to feel whatever that curse was again, or at least not too soon. “I’m sorry.” she gulps out again.

Bellatrix seems to have momentarily forgotten all about her. The older witch has tried to brush away the worst of the dirt with her hands, but is only rewarded with disengaging another fragment of black lace. “Be quiet then.” she says, visibly coming to a decision “I understand some other witches and wizards have sunk so low as to value your chatter. I do not. I have a great many important-” Bellatrix lets out a pained hiss.

Hermione looks up before she can think better of it, only to find herself eye level with the dark mark, black and harsh and painfully raised on the soft skin of Bellatrix’s arm. Bellatrix apparates from the room without another word.

She stays sitting a few moments longer. Bellatrix’s words are already fading. She traces the scar on her arm. _Something happened_. She feels better than she had at the park, although whether that was from food or being back at Black Manor she can’t be sure. _It’ll happen again,_ Hermione thinks bitterly. _No matter which way I try to escape whatever happened (something happened) will hold me here._

 _Maybe I’ll stumble across one of Voldemort’s Hocruxes on the way out_ , she thinks grimly, getting up. She’d settle for a nice, big knife too. Or even better a wand. Or a nice cursed necklace she could choke Bellatr- _and there it is_ \- that sharp stabbing pain near her heart. Hermione thinks morosely of her Dad’s heartburn tablets in the bathroom cabinet at home. What a time to be afflicted with something so very _… muggle._

In the evening gloom, the entrance hall reminds her sharply of Grimmauld place, with the giant Black family tapestry visible from where she walks towards the front of the house. There are a lot of Black family members, but Hermione suspects that only a few would have houses this luxuriously demonic and be deemed worthy of holding one of the golden trio. Somehow when Slytherin’s bragged about their homes, she’d always thought that they’d be less _dogmatic_.

 _Pentus said that this house belonged to Bellatrix’s parents_. After her marriage to Lestrange she would have gotten a house with that name. Surely? Bellatrix must use the house as a second home, Hermione reckoned. After all her parents would be much too old to be living by now, wouldn’t they? _Wouldn’t they?_

Hermione suppresses another shiver at the thought of being left at any of the surviving elder Black’s mercies. The portrait of Sirius’ mother screams through her memories. She decides to not speculate at all, but keep moving.

There are doors along the passageway, some ajar, and Hermione peeks in a vast shadowy sitting room, an Edwardian-styled office, and what looks like a substantial library. Only a few candlewicks still flicker in deep puddles of molten wax in each room. She resists the urge to take a detour to explore the book covers. The double front door looms, but Hermione feels foolish before she even tries it.

Locked.

Of course. This morning was one thing, but now? How easy did she think this was going to be? But she’s on the ground floor. If she could find an unwarded window, she could just climb out and – _And what Hermione?_ A voice she’s never heard before speaks up. It’s bitter and full of anger. _Fly back to your friends? You’ll bring them nothing but trouble now._ Hermione stumbles back a little at the poison in that thought. She must be more traumatized than she realises. Maybe she should-

“Is mudgirl lost?”

Pentus stands next to a large decorative vase in the half-gloom of the hall. Hermione fights the urge to squirm like a naughty child. “I was just, uh, you know, exploring” She gives him a weak smile. Pentus doesn’t return it.

“Prying”

“I prefer adventuring- has a nicer ring to it-“ She tries to joke lamely.

“Black Manor has been an impenetrable fortress since the second of the great Goblin Wars” An unpleasant smile plays around the house elf’s mouth. “Better, and _purer_ witches than you have tried for hundreds of years to infiltrate or escape its defences-”

Hermione feels her patience snap. _All_ wards can be broken. Especially weakening centuries-old ones. What had Flitwick always said? _The joint application of time and sudden force can break all enchantments_. Right.

Without waiting to hear the rest of Pentus’s speech she walks purposefully forward, eyes set firmly on the closest half-open sitting room door. Though nearly blinded by the weak evening light streaming through it after all the gloom, she can half make out soft furnishings and a large canvas resplendent with a gory medieval battle scene. The window she can’t see, but the light is there and so there must be one. There is _London_ behind that glass. She quickens her step and reaches out; her fingertips come into contact with the cold wood of the door and-

BANG!

She is lying on the floor five metres away from the door. The heavy carpet of the entrance hall is rucked up behind her back with the force of how she was thrown. A throbbing pain radiates from her index finger outwards and her mouth is filled with blood from where she bit down on her tongue.

Hermione can do nothing more than take fast shallow breaths through her nose and clamp her hands into fists. She wonders now, for the first time with some respect, how much work Sirius did on Grimmauld place before the rest of them even arrived. There were repulsion wards in that branch of the Black household but nothing, _nothing_ , like this. She sits up; feeling like every bone in her body is trembling with shock. Pentus still stands near the double doorway. She doesn’t have to look at him to feel his smirk.

“I trust my lady can find her own way back to her room?”

 

***

Sleep eludes her that night.

She has the first migraine of her life for starters. It feels like someone has the pads of their thumbs jammed behind both her eye sockets and is steadily increasing the pressure. There’s also the fact that any way she tries to get comfortable, she’ll end up lying on a bruise. At least she’s reasonably warm. Pentus had grudgingly appeared in her room an hour ago, levitating a trunk of old clothes, mumbling darkly about ‘instructions’.

She changed first into an ancient moth-eaten emerald knitted jumper, a dusty black felt skirt, and grey woollen tights. A big holey t-shirt promoting The Weird Sisters (looking a lot fresher and hairier than when she’d seen them at the Yule Ball) had doubled nicely as a nightshirt once she’d shaken out most of the dust.

The clothes have the slightly artificial feel of sixties textiles. Hermione prefers to believe that they once belonged to a teenage radical Andromeda, not her sisters. She folded the rags that had once been her party dress and cardigan carefully along with everything else, and placed it into the bottom drawer of the bureau. She doubts even Mrs Weasley’s superior sewing magic could save it now.

Even more grudgingly Pentus had removed the wards on one of the other attic doors, and Hermione had almost wept when the door opened to reveal the oldest and tiniest bathroom she’d ever set eyes on. But even a lukewarm bath had felt wonderful, even if Pentus’ resentful kindness had failed to cover a towel or a toothbrush.

She wonders again if the others are alright. She’s almost a hundred per cent sure Harry, Ron and Lupin escaped, but there were so many guests. And the other thing ( _Voldemort chanting, blood soaking a fabric rosette_ ) the thing she’s still having trouble remembering is between then and now is still lurking somewhere too. If she could just-

Downstairs a door slams.

Hermione stiffens underneath the sheet. _Something’s wrong_. It’s almost like a physical knowledge. The pain at her brow intensifies, and she has to jam her hand in front of her mouth, and bite down on her knuckles to control her whine.

She hears someone moving around on the floor below. There’s a crash that almost makes her fall off her bed. A female laugh. Then another angry voice- a man’s - rises over it. She can’t make out the words. Hermione lays there for longer than she cares to remember and just listens to the muffled yelling downstairs. Then, almost before she has time to think about it, Hermione has swung her legs over the side of the bed, and pulled her skirt over her hips.

The house is unnerving after dark. Hermione blindly gropes along the third corridor walls to find her way, and is thrice rewarded with muffled abuse from a painting. When she reaches Bellatrix’s door something close to sanity returns to her. _Bellatrix will curse me into next week if she sees me_. She is just wondering if she’ll be able to sneak back upstairs when the door swings open-

-and Hermione finds herself face to face with Rodolphus Lestrange.

He’s mid-swig from bottle of firewhiskey and is dressed in a deep puce silk dressing gown. There are nail marks on his cheek. He swallows then coughs at her for a moment. He’s framed by warm candlelight and Hermione can spot fist-sized bluebell flames levitating in the room behind him.

“What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

Behind him Hermione can hear someone moving around in the bathroom. “ _I said get out_!” Bellatrix’s voice is feral even dampened through the bathroom wall. She sounds like a cornered animal.

Rodolphus drops the bottle and starts groping at the pocket of his dressing gown. Hermione, spurred by this action, finally recovers and takes a stumbling step back. “ _Crucio_!” Rodolphus screeches.

Pain. Her headache and soreness feels like child’s play compared to this. Hermione twists and hugs her arms around her middle trying to curl away from it. It’s everywhere, and she only dimly registers falling. The wood is glossy against the side of her face and if she could only focus on that instead of the curse radiating through every square inch of her body-

It stops, and Hermione can hear angry voices. She sucks down huge mouthfuls of air. The varnished floorboards are very cool against her cheek. She keeps her eyes squeezed shut.

“- it’s _Granger_ \- what the hell is _Hermione Granger_ doing in our house Bellatrix?”

“That is between the Dark Lord and myself.”

Hermione opens her eyes and is greeted with the sight of Bellatrix’s stocking-clad calves. The older witch is standing between Hermione and her husband. Past the hem of her silky black dressing gown, past the curve of her belly and breasts, she can make out the underside of Bellatrix’s sharp profile. She looks murderous. “And I’ll trust you remember that this is _my_ house, not ours, and it’s contents are _my property_ ”

“You will NOT talk to me in that tone- I have been equally loyal and I deserve-“

Hermione never does find out what Rodolphus thinks he deserves, because Bellatrix moves like a viper. Her husband ducks the hex, and sets off cursing down the darkened corridor. Bellatrix keeps her wand raised until a moment later they hear the front door slam.

Then she turns on Hermione.

Hermione likes to think she has some experience with fear. She’s been petrified by a basilisk, has accidently turned herself into a cat, fought alongside the other DA students at the Department of Mysteries, and has, amongst other horrors, survived a kiss with Cormac McLaggen.

Obviously, she was wrong.

“What the hell are you doing down here?” She shrinks back under the rage in Bellatrix’s voice.

“I-“ She looks for something sympathetic in the livid face above her.

“ _Do you have any idea_ \--” Bellatrix breaks off, then seems to collect herself continuing at a low whisper “How dare you show your face in my private rooms without permission”

“I- I’m sorry” Hermione stutters “I thought you were in trouble- I felt-”

Her head hurts so much now, that traitorous tears are beginning to well up. _Something happened_. She hates this. Bellatrix will think she’s crying but it’s just this damn migraine if she could just get rid-

Bellatrix is still incinerating Hermione with her eyes, no doubt understanding that her loaded silence is equal to any threat right now. The dread of anticipation- Hermione supposes she has years of experience to draw from. There will be repercussions for this. Painful, horrible, nightmarish repercussions. Hermione feels icy fear flow once again into the hollows of her bones. She can’t recall if she ever contained anything other than fear and pain, or if she ever will again.

Then… then she discovers something marvellous: within that last inch of fear, within the place where her heart wheezes, where her palms are clammy – she’s calm. This must be what Harry meant when he faced Voldemort. There comes a point where they can’t touch you.

Still shaking, still terrified yet somehow sure, Hermione reaches up and takes Bellatrix’s hand. The older witches’ eyes widen another fraction. Her hold on her wand tightens but Hermione doesn’t care.

Bellatrix’s hand is warm and dry. Hermione’s headache has cleared. It didn’t fade, or dwindle, it cleared. One moment it was there the next _poof_! _She doesn’t dare- no she can’t-_ she strokes her thumb along Bellatrix’s ring finger. A feeling of rightness fills her. A feeling of being whole.

“Oh.”

If she hadn’t been looking directly at her, Hermione wouldn’t have believed Bellatrix had spoken. For the first time in their acquaintance Bellatrix doesn’t look angry, or even calculating. Hermione notices that she’d interrupted the older witch in the process of taking the pins out of her hair.

A loose strand of dark hair sticks to Bellatrix’s slightly open mouth. She quickly looks down at their hands. _Oh Merlin, this must be what insanity feels like._ For a moment they just stare at their joined hands. Hermione looks back up just in time to see Bellatrix’s face morph into a worried frown. “He said this might happen” Bellatrix’s brows draw together “He said-”

Hermione sees Bellatrix’s wand flicker out of the corner of her eye and then the world goes dark.


	2. Black House - September

“ _A Witch is born out of the true hungers of her time_ ”

Ray Bradbury

 

Hermione wakes up to someone shaking her. She aims a few sleepy blows to get free. Ron or Ginny or whoever it is doesn’t let go. If anything, the grip on her upper arms gets tighter. If they’re waking her because they need to even out the numbers in Apple Quidditch again so help her-

“Wake up.” That’s odd. She can’t recall any of the Weasley’s ever speaking to her so coldly-

Hermione’s eyes snap open. Bellatrix lets her go abruptly and Hermione falls back clipping her head on the cot edge along the way. She struggles up. Squints around the room.

It’s barely light, yet Bellatrix sits at the edge of her bed, holding a steaming cup and wearing an expression of distaste. Hermione sits up a little straighter. The wood of the wall is cold.

“What-“

The cup is shoved to her lips. She tries to shrink back, but Bellatrix levels her wand. Hermione begins drinking slow measured sips. It’s not poison as far as she can tell. It tastes like nettles, and is laced with the unmistakable sweetness of a sleeping draught. Bellatrix watches her drink it all, and sets the cup on the bedside table, her wand dropping again.

“It’s come to my attention mudblood,” Bellatrix begins “that your little stay with me is not working out.”

Hermione just stares back. There’s a funny prickle on the back of her neck. _So this is what that stalked antelope in nature documentaries feels like_. Odd, she thought she’d have more jumpy energy, instead she feels like all her bones are made of jelly.

“What-“ she begins again, stupidly.

It starts coming back to her.

Rodolphus.

_Oh._

_Oh no._

Bellatrix ignores her and continues. “I thought we might understood each other,” She exhales a sharp breath “But after last night-“ Hermione clenches her hands in her sheet and resists the urge to pull her knees up to her chest “I have begun to reconsider.”

Hermione stares at her dumbly as she struggles on what point to address first “Understood each other?” She’s lost for words for the first time in her life. Finally she manages “ _You’re a Death Eater_. You’ve killed hundreds of people! You killed Sirius!”

Bellatrix’s eyes snap up. Her look brings Hermione up short. It’s not one of the six thousand varieties of insanity. It’s pure _reasoning_ coldness.

_Bellatrix isn’t insane._

Or rather she’d been doing a bang up job of pretending. Hermione’s mind reels trying to understand what this means. Bellatrix Lestrange isn’t insane. There’s slyness in the other woman’s eyes and for the first time Hermione can hear that her giggle is forced. _She knows that I know._

“Do you know what happens to a hocrux when it is reabsorbed by it’s owner?”

Hermione struggles to change track “You…you can’t heal a soul without genuine remorse” She wants to kick herself as soon as she says it. She has no reason to even know what Hocruxes are. But Bellatrix doesn’t seem to notice the slip.

“That’s right” She shifts a little closer and runs a soothing hand through Hermione’s tangled hair “But I think I’d rather give up one pesky half of my soul than have it walk around and cause me grief”

“But Vol- but it’s impossible to create sentient Hocruxes-”

Bellatrix’s hand stills. “What business is the Dark Lords… ?” The she tugs suddenly at Hermione’s hair to bring her closer “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?” Hermione squeaks.

She waits for Bellatrix to laugh and say something horrible. Maybe she did manage to kill Ron and Harry after all. But Bellatrix just stays right up in her face just looking at her. Her eyes are wide and luminous and ringed by dark lashes. The sanity in them is unmistakable.

“Oh my poor sweet pet-” Bellatrix bites her bottom lip. Hermione watches the blood rush underneath the skin. Tiny puffs of air fill the space between them, and it all feels so annoyingly _good._ “And here you were thinking everything was just the same?” The cunning is back in her hooded eyes.

“You’re my hocrux.”

Hermione waits for the punch line. But Bellatrix has gone back to just _looking_ at her, a half smile playing around her mouth, and her hand cupped proprietarily on the curve of Hermione’s skull.

There’s a flicker. Then it starts to come back. The low chanting of Voldemort’s voice. The flowers and Bellatrix’s murmurings. The thing that pushed through the shell of her very existence. _Something happened. Something happened_. Suddenly it’s very hard to breathe.

Then someone, somewhere very far away, starts to laugh. She feels Bellatrix’s iron rings on her mouth. Tastes some of the salt on her palm. It’s quiet again. “If I’m going to give you another go, these are exactly the kind of things you’re going to need to get a grip on.” Bellatrix lifts her hand and, after a moment of hesitation, touches her little finger on the tip of Hermione’s nose.

The weirdly familiar nature of that gesture and, worse, the tingly feeling of rightness that wells up inside her, convince Hermione more than any words. A leaden weight settles into her stomach. “A piece of your soul is inside me?”

“That’s right” Bellatrix stretches back with cat-like grace, exposing her long neck “It’s been marvellous actually. I haven’t been able to think this clearly since before Azkaban.”

“A piece of your horrible, festering soul is inside me-” Hermione doesn’t want the useless tears anymore. But she can feel them coming.

Bellatrix’s head snaps back up “I could kill you and then you’d be free of it.” Hermione shrinks back into her pillow before she can stop herself. “But look,” Bellatrix smirks, tilting her head “The survival instinct endures in even the lowest.”

“I can’t-” Hermione nearly balks at her next sentence “I can’t go back to Harry and Ron.”

Her voice sounds tiny. Bellatrix gives her a humourless smile. “You’ll see them again soon enough.” At Hermione’s sharp intake of breath, she rolls her eyes “We haven’t caught them yet mudgirl- but it’s only a matter of time.”

“No it isn’t,” Hermione is suddenly very tired “They have magic you can only dream of.”

The cot creaks as Bellatrix stands. Hermione can barely keep her face in focus. The room is getting dark.

“The Dark Lord has all the magic in the world...a clever girl like you should know that.”

***

It’s about a week later that Hermione eats another late breakfast of tinned herring alone in the kitchen. She doesn’t look at any doors anymore. If she went back to Harry and Ron who knows what the soul fragment might make her do. Could it make her do anything?

She’d struggled through nearly half those awful Hocrux books twice …but then they never mentioned anything about splitting your soul into seven pieces either. She needs more data. _If only she had her books_. She spent weeks shrinking them for nothing. They’re probably still rotting in the Weasley’s party field.

A crash somewhere upstairs makes her pause. Bellatrix has been in a particularly fine mood following their little talk. Sometimes there’s foul smells from her office. Sometimes late at night Hermione hears the low murmur of Bellatrix weaving a spell. She doesn’t press her ear so hard into the pillow then. They haven’t spoken since that morning. Mainly because Hermione barely leaves her room.

Hermione holds a particularly oily flake of fish up in the dim light. She’s just going to have to get her hands on some more information. Every curse has a counter curse right? Until then she couldn’t risk anybody else’s life. Least of all Harry and Ron’s.

She chews some more and starts to see a plan.

***

“Come in mudgirl”

Bellatrix doesn’t even look up from her work, when Hermione knocks on the half-open door. She sits behind a heavy oak desk, almost completely obscured by rolls of parchments. There are iron-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose. Hermione feels the hot gall of anger rise, so she isn’t even worth a glance now. She could have a firepoker or- or- she could-

“No use being angry” Bellatrix continues in the same bored sing-song “Pentus is more capable of doing me harm than you are.”

Hermione really does fight her gasp. Her heart beats wildly and her palms have started to sweat. She hadn’t felt Bellatrix in her mind so how- how-

Bellatrix snorts. “Puzzle over that one mudblood.”

Hermione stares at her, and works on getting her sweating palms under control.

“I was wondering…umm Bellatri- Ms Lestrange-” Hermione sees that Bellatrix looks at her now, eyes flashing dark and her eyebrows rising “The thing is-”

“Spit it out mudbaby.” The older woman growls.

Hermione resists the urge to close her eyes. Her next sentence is either going to work on shock value…or get her killed.

“The thing is… I’m bored.”

Bellatrix’s eyes narrow and her hand reaches for something obscured in the papers. “Oh I’m _so sorry_ Mudblood” Her hand re-emerges, clutching her wand “ I didn’t realise I was running a day-care-- I’m sure a few turns of Crucio would take the edge right off your boredom?”

“No- it’s not like that- I mean- umm” Hermione gestures around the room “Your work. You’re doing spellwork right? Research and stuff?”

“Stuff?”

“Oh sorry- stupid muggle word for things.” _Of all the times to use a muggle word_ “The thing is I’m quite good at it. Books and research and the whole bit”

“And?”

“And I could help you!” She scrambles “Fetch books and things you know. Not the actual brain work. You don’t even have to tell me what you’re working on- just what to fetch or write or do really.”

Hermione waits for the blow. It never comes. When she looks up Bellatrix is still considering her.

“Why do you suddenly want to help?” It’s clear that Bellatrix would cut through any lie faster than she could think of it. “Doesn’t this constitute a betrayal to your dear baby Potter?” But Hermione’s prepared for this. She tells the truth. One of them anyway.

“I miss being useful,” She says “It made all the bad parts of me acceptable.” She thinks back on how many assignments she’s written for the boys. Then shakes the thought. They’re past that.

“Well, that’s pathetic.” Bellatrix snorts, but continues before Hermione can defend herself “Muddy, we’re going to have to lay some ground rules hmm?” She taps the quill against her lips “First: no questions. You do as I say. Second: no sulking in your room for days. It’s tedious.”

“I can help?” Hermione says, hardly daring to believe it was so easy. She’ll have access to the library. Access to all those books! Her life’s blood - no matter how many souls were squatting in her.

“Yes, tomorrow” Bellatrix’s eyes flick back to her work “There’s only so much damage you can really do. Now get out of my sight- I’m busy.” Hermione nods, hiding a mean smile behind a sweet one. She turns to leave. Bellatrix’s voice stops her short.

“And rule three: no smelling like fish in my study.”

***

Hermione is starting the third day of her new life by having trouble spelling one of Bellatrix’s favourite correspondents names. He’s a man in the new ministry. Ukranian by the lack of vowels in his name.

She peeks up at Bellatrix quickly, wishing she had her usual curtain of bushy hair to hide behind. Bellatrix pronounced it ‘annoying’ on the first day, and Hermione has taken to winding it up around an old quill. She wouldn’t put it past the older witch to hex it off.

The woman in question is still perched behind her desk, absorbing an ancient evil-looking volume she’d made Hermione fetch her from the library that morning. There was no title, only an engraving of a flayed man. Hermione is dreading having to touch it again.

They’d almost fallen into a sort of routine. Hermione would report in the morning (at quarter to nine on the dot- some Hogwarts habits were hard to shake) and would invariably be stuck with some menial task. She’d already mucked out the study, impersonated Bellatrix in five bureaucratic letters, made one untouched cup of tea, and fetched half a dozen books. She was no closer to Hocrux information, but Hermione did feel the beginnings of a tentative sort of trust in her ability to perform tasks to the level of a reasonably smart dog.

Which was a start. Which she was at loathe to disrupt with something as elementary as spelling. But if this Ukrainian turns out to be important and she offends him…there is nothing for it: “Mrs Lestrange, I was just wondering-”

The door behind Hermione slams open and she narrowly avoids spilling ink all over her carefully stacked rolls of clean parchment. She never used to be this clumsy. That was more Ron’s forte. But that makes her think of Ron, and the way the sunlight made his freckles golden and how he called her _‘Mione_. But no. She will not think of people who like and ( _maybe_ ) even love her. She won’t get though this then.

Rodolphus Lestrange meanwhile has come around her desk and is appraising her. Beyond him, she sees that Bellatrix has remained absorbed in her reading; only her eyes have stopped moving. “I don’t know what game is being played here-” Rodolphus begins, and now that he isn’t shouting Hermione is surprised to find that his sonorous voice is actually rather pleasant “-but it stops right now.” Hermione finds she can hold his eye quite evenly.

Bellatrix’s mouth twitches. She sets the book aside and drapes herself behind him. Her hands come around and lie flat-palmed on his chest. “Nothing is being played dearest.” She mumbles into his back and he seems to relax a fraction.

“Then why is the mudblood of the golden trio _your secretary_?” He turns slightly towards Bellatrix “Surely there’s no end of suitable candidates?” He considers a moment. “What about one of the Greengrass girls? Or Draco’s little girlfriend?”

Hermione keeps her gaze stony. She imagines the utter disaster Pansy Parkinson would be as anyone’s assistant. If she only knew how to spell that damned Ukranian’s name, she’d go back to writing.

“Miss Granger has sympathy for our cause”

This is such a gigantic lie that Hermione is pulled right out of her semi-amusing fantasies and opens her mouth in outrage – just as she catches the murderous look in Bellatrix’s eye. Rodolphus has twisted fully to face his wife, thankfully missing the whole interaction.

“Sympathy for our cause?” He turns back to Hermione his gaze dark and unnerving “ _Her_?”

Bellatrix makes her eyes wide and childish. She nods. “I’m to see if she’s sincere” _She really is beautiful,_ Hermione thinks almost in spite of herself. Rodolphus seems to agree, kissing Bellatrix’s forehead, with more gentleness than Hermione would have thought a Death Eater capable of.

“Why wasn’t she brought to me? Or to Greyback?” He looks at Hermione again and now there is definitely something lecherous in his gaze.

“Because we’d like to keep her in one piece,” Bellatrix has switched back to her simpering soprano. It grates on Hermione’s ears after days of hearing her dark and even voice. “For now.”

“Hmm ... well have you been keeping busy Madame Lestrange?” Rodolphus asks, obviously done with Hermione and that part of the conversation for now.

Bellatrix grins and leans up to kiss him. His hands palm her breasts. Hermione feels her face getting hot- she is going to have to invent brain bleach to soak this from her memories. She focuses on the ink splotched half letter at her hands and tries to drown out the tiny sounds with sheer force of will alone. Rodolphus gasps and Hermione looks up to see him touch a hand to his mouth. It comes away bloody. Bellatrix giggles and twists out of his embrace.

That sparks something in Hermione’s brain. So Bellatrix is still acting insane to everyone- including her _dearest_ husband. This is a bargaining chip if Hermione has ever seen one and she stores it away for later.

“What’s the word from the ministry darling?” Bellatrix asks, her mouth only thinning for a second.

Rodolphus grins. “It’s as we planned- once Scrigmour fell we took over, and nobody dares to speak openly of it.” He’s obviously quite enchanted by the cleverness of whole thing.

“As the Dark Lord planned you mean.” Bellatrix corrects archly.

That seems to throw some cold water on her husband’s good mood “Yes, precisely.” He takes a step back “Speaking of which, I must be getting back.” He scowls. “I’ve left Dolohov and Macnair to begin drawing up the mudblood trials. I fear it won’t end well for any of us.”

“Faithless clods the both of them.” Bellatrix’s snarls before abruptly turning sweet again. “Will you be home for dinner?” Rodolphus’ eyes slide over to Hermione.

“Yes, I think I will be.”

***

Hermione doesn’t even think that dinner would include her. Apart from the odd first two dinners she has been allowed to sneak whatever she wants from the kitchen. Provided what she wants is tinned meats and a few mouldering vegetables. Bellatrix seemed to have made her point and was content to let Hermione be.

This changes when Rodolphus joins them. Hermione is just deliberating whether corned beef or sardines will make her gag less, when there is a quiet ‘pop’ near her shin, and she finds herself standing in the dining room. She barely has time to spot Pentus who’s already disappearing with another ‘pop’. She hopes this isn’t going to become a regular thing. House-elf magic is tricky and she’s not sure she could do much against it even if she did have her wand.

Bellatrix and Rodolphus are watching her. Bellatrix with the slightly too wide-eyed look of the insane or, as Hermione is starting to understand, the over-compensating. Rodolphus’ look is more measured, and he rises and pulls out a chair on his left.

Hermione is thrown for a moment, until she remembers Bellatrix’s lie about her sudden sympathy for the dark side. Why is Rodolphus not in the know? Part of his own wife’s soul, and he nearly killed her?

_I could kill you and you’d be free of it_ \- Bellatrix’s voice floats through her memory. Well, maybe Bellatrix doesn’t care that much. She covers as smoothly as she can and settles into the seat. Bellatrix glares at her across the oak table, and while Rodolphus retakes his chair at the head of the table she mouths ‘ _do better’_.

Dinner is excellent in terms of food, horrible in terms of company.

Hermione tries not to groan audibly when she eats her first sprig of asparagus. She never thought she’d get this excited about food. But days of tins and she fears she’s close to developing scurvy. The mushrooms are nearly a religious experience. She butters the accompanying crusty bread and tries not to eat it all in three big bites.

Rodolphus’ questions aren’t nearly half as pleasant. He lets her plough halfway through her plate before he begins. Where was she born? Did she know about the wizarding world? When did she get her letter? What were her marks? When did she first consider the dark side? And on and on it went.

Hermione tries to stay as close to the truth as possible. The dark side bit throws her a bit, but she decides she started going dark in first year, after Harry and Ron “all but sacrificed me to a troll”. She gets some satisfaction in the way even Bellatrix’s eyebrows raise when she lists her marks from last term. But it’s horribly tiring to lie about everything you are deep down, and Hermione feels a wave of immense relief when Rodolphus’ questions finally dry up.

“Well,” he says, his voice unreadable “We seem to have ourselves quite the little ally.”

Hermione looks up from her empty desert bowl. She wishes she could be sure she’s convinced him. Bellatrix seems to have reached the same conclusion. She leans over the table and takes his hand. Hermione sees that she hasn’t touched her pudding.

“If the mudblood is lying--” Her black eyes flicker to Hermione “--you may punish her in any way you see fit my love.”

Not for the first time Hermione wishes very much that she could have just died at the Burrow.

***

“My husband seems to have taken quite a shine to you.”

Hermione squints at Bellatrix, who she can just make out haloed by golden afternoon sunlight. She’s leaning against the window frame, presumably watching the muggles pass on the street below. She’s wearing a beautiful oriental fitted coat. There’s a sparrow skeleton embroidered over her clavicle, just underneath the mandarin collar, and Hermione has been trying not to ask all afternoon if Voldemort has a following in Asia.

She also has the suicidal urge to congratulate Bellatrix on her hair, which for once doesn’t look like a bird’s nest, but is haphazardly piled on top of her head to keep out of her eyes while reading. She swallows the compliment and shrugs instead “I suppose.”

“I’ll need those letters owled by nightfall” Bellatrix scowls at Hermione. The writing has become almost second nature by now. If she were anyone else, Hermione would say Bellatrix is put out by how naturally Hermione has taken to the job. The letters in question are done, but it probably isn’t advisable to tell Bellatrix that for another hour.

“Why don’t you go into the Ministry like Mr Lestrange?” The question is out before Hermione even has a chance to consider how dangerously rude it is to basically ask Bellatrix why she doesn’t leave the house.

They’re working in Bellatrix’s study, about a week after Rodolphus’ first interruption. He has been staying with them the past days and Hermione is still surprised at the eerie domestic feeling that’s crept into the house with him. When she was Bellatrix’s prisoner and everything was normal in the world, she drifted around the house basically at her own leisure. Now a disgruntled Pentus collects her promptly each morning at seven, forces her to shower, and make ancient second-hand clothes look presentable for breakfast at eight with the Lestranges. The same thing happens at dinner.

Rodolphus leaves for work at the Ministry at quarter to nine each morning, and it’s only then that things return to normal. Bellatrix hasn’t spoken to her much, not that she was a chatterbox before, but Hermione enjoys talking to someone with at least a modicum of honesty. Her lengthy conversations with Mr Lestrange at mealtimes are fraught with the constant worry of slipping up. She’s not sure why she’s pretending so hard, except for a nearly primal notion that Rodolphus is dangerous to her in a way his wife isn’t. Hermione catches him watching her sometimes when she returns after dinner to her attic room. Even if they’ve just had an almost friendly argument about the second Great Goblin War, there’s something in his face when he looks at her, like every clever word is another nail in her coffin.

But at least he leaves each morning, and never mentions his ministry work at the table. Bellatrix on the other hand has not left the house once since he’s arrived. Hermione catches the older witch watching her too sometimes, her eyes hooded and thoughtful, but her thoughts are nowhere near as plain as her husband’s. At least she hasn’t taken her wand to Hermione again since that second awful dinner.

“Excuse me?” _Until now_ Hermione thinks, not daring to look up. Why could she never stop asking questions? The room has gone horribly quiet. Bellatrix sounds bored. “My comings and goings in my own house are none of your concern _mudblood._ ” She breathes the last word and Hermione flinches.

Hermione fingers a loose thread on Andromeda’s old plaid skirt. She nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels a wand pressing into her throat. Bellatrix’s body is warm underneath the silk behind her. _How did she get to the other side of the room so fast?_ “I didn’t mean-”

“I don’t care what you meant” Hermione tries to repress a tremble. She thought she’d been so careful, so careful to keep in mind what these people really were. But Bellatrix’s mild, matter of fact words cut in some soft part of her, one Hermione hadn’t even realised she had exposed. _No matter how smart she was they would never see her as anything more than half-life_. No matter how hard she tries- they’ll always see nothing but _dirty blood_ -

“I thought I’d made this very clear” She has to strain to hear the woman’s voice and the tip of the wand seems to be pulling Hermione’s throat closed like a stitched bag. “I don’t care what you think-” Hermione’s windpipe has closed up completely now- “-and I don’t care to hear your chatter.”

The pressure on Hermione’s throat suddenly eases. She takes a shuddering breath. Bellatrix is already walking back to the window. She leans against the frame, looking down into the street once more. Her profile is like some old Roman coin, beautiful and unchangeable.

“Why is big bad Bella so mean?” Bellatrix murmurs, almost to herself.

Hermione massages her throat and gives the answer she knows to be right “Because I’m a mudblood.”

Bellatrix’s face remains unreadable. “Clever girl.”

***

After that things change for the worse.

Although something vaguely domestic hangs in the air, and swirls around Hermione and her two captors, she can never get the ease of that first confused week back. She avoids looking Bellatrix straight in the eye, and almost considers abandoning her assisting duties altogether, if not for the fact that a piece of the woman’s soul was squatting in her body.

Rodolphus notices the change too. He stares at her sometimes over dinner without talking, until Hermione is nearly squirming with nerves. There’s something wolfish to his gaze now. And he’s started touching her in passing. A hand resting at the small of her back if she happens to arrive ahead of him at mealtimes, a tight squeeze on her upper arm when he passes her in the corridor, a brush of his hand against her knee under the table. None of it ever directly in front of his wife.

As if Hermione could go to Bellatrix even if she wanted to. The tentative bond they had been forming is all but gone. Hermione sometimes wonders how she could have ever thought Bellatrix silent in that first week. If she didn’t hear her giving orders to the occasional Floo-in in the anteroom of her study, Hermione would have seriously worried the woman had gone mute.

Rodolphus takes his wife’s silence without the slightest sign of unease. Hermione supposes there must have been depressive moods to balance the mania when she was still truly insane. That must be what he thinks is happening now. She wonders again when would be a good time to spend her one and only coin in this game. Bellatrix is getting saner by the day.

Then on September twenty-third (which Hermione remembers because she has three letters to the Department of Magical Corrections to proofread) the distinct noise of the front door slamming wakes Hermione up. She lies disoriented in her narrow bed for a moment. It’s still dark outside, and if anybody had the decency to give her a watch, she’d guess it is a little past five in the morning.

She takes her time getting ready. The wide-tooth comb Pentus gave her isn’t half bad, if she spends at least thirty minutes brushing out the bedhead tangles of her hair. She thinks longingly of her wand. She’d had a whole arsenal of spells to get her curls sorted for the day. As she counts strokes, she watches her pigeons roost outside, and tries not to remember that she’s a shitty soul’s Tupperware container and would probably kill her two best friends in the world on sight.

Someone hacked today’s soft cotton dress off at the knees long ago, and Hermione throws on another pair of grey woollen stockings. She does wish she could stop dressing like she did in first year. She doesn’t think a pair of jeans, or, Merlin-forbid, a sweatshirt has ever crossed the threshold of the most Noble House of Black. Pentus would probably have a conniption.

It’s only when she wanders down to the dining room that she notices anything is wrong. Rodolphus sits at the great long table alone, sipping his usual black coffee and reading a copy of The Daily Prophet. She sees Harry’s face on the front cover with the big bold headline ‘UNDESIRABLE NO. 1’ and is momentarily horrified. Have they caught him? But no- no the headline underneath reads ‘STILL AT LARGE’.

It’s only after she’s loaded her plate with toast, half a grilled tomato and some eggs, that Hermione notices that Bellatrix hasn’t joined them. “Sit Miss Granger, please”. It’s the most friendly Rodolphus has been in days and every danger signal in Hermione begins to go off. Perhaps Bellatrix is just late? But Hermione casts out her senses, and can feel with some mysterious sixth one that must be the Hocrux bit of her, that Bellatrix isn’t in the house. _She isn’t anywhere near it_.

Hermione considers her options. She could drop her food and try to make a run for it- to where though was the real question. She could attempt to overpower Rodolphus, which she discards just as quickly. Or- or she could sit as he requested and hope that fear of Bellatrix and damage to her property would get her through this.

She sits. After a moment she feels Rodolphus’ hand ghosting along her thigh. But that isn’t anything out of the ordinary from the past week. Still Hermione can barely concentrate on eating. When the breakfast hour is up Rodolphus releases her, folds up his newspaper, and leaves with nothing more than a courteous “Miss Granger.”

Hermione nearly sags with relief when she hears the front door shut. She leaves her plate unfinished. Usually she tries to help Pentus by clearing the table, but today she just can’t face it. Her hands are shaking again and she has to make a conscious effort to still them. She sits in Bellatrix’s study and spends the morning composing three letters of recommendation to the Ministry of Magical Corrections. She’s just signing the last one with Bellatrix’s sharp signature, when she hears muffled voices downstairs.

“If you’re having us on Rudy- I swear-” Someone shushes the speaker.

_That’s MacNair’s voice_ , Hermione thinks, pricking up her ears. _What on earth?_ “This would not be a joke I would find funny,” A lower, rougher voice agrees. It makes all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. There’s the stomp of boots on the stairs now.

“Quiet, gentlemen,” That’s Rodolphus, he sounds more genteel than ever “We don’t want to startle our guest.”

It takes Hermione a fraction of a second longer to understand, and to become horribly afraid. Why hadn’t she run? Why hadn’t she begged Pentus to call Bellatrix back? Why hadn’t she barricaded herself inside her room the second Rodolphus left the house? _Why had she spent the morning answering Bellatrix’s useless correspondence of all things?_

The voices are on her floor now, and getting closer. “Granger? _Potter’s_ Granger?” MacNair is saying “Why would she be here?”

“She’s staying with us on some business of my wife’s” Rodolphus sounds annoyed at having to concede this “No reason for us to miss out on all the fun.”

“She is a very _alluring_ little thing.” MacNair agrees and Hermione thinks about how the only time the man ever got a good look at her she was _barely_ _thirteen_ for Merlin’s sake. But they’re nearly outside the door now.

Hermione scans Bellatrix’s study frantically. There’s nothing to hide behind, except the one desk, and the anteroom is warded because it contains a Floo portal. The door starts to open. Hermione picks up the discarded flayed man book Bellatrix is yet to make her return to the library. It’s pretty heavy even though it does begin to wail faintly in her hands. She pulls her arm back like Ginny taught her when the younger Weasley still had the faintest hope of her being anything but useless as a chaser.

Someone clasps her waist from behind. “What’s this Miss Granger?” Rodolphus’ breath is warm on her ear. Hermione shrieks, drops the book and tries to struggle away. He holds on and Hermione wishes she could fight him with magic instead of something so pedestrian as brute strength. He traps one arm and then the other, all the while pressing up behind her. She struggles frantically for a few moments more before forcing herself to be still.

“That old trick isn’t going to work girlie” Out of the corner of her eye she can see MacNair leaning on Bellatrix’s writing desk. There’s a mean edge to his friendly tone. The other man must have apparated out of her sight. But she can sense him. “What do you want?” she’s proud how dismissive she sounds.

“Didn’t they say she was the brightest witch of her generation?” MacNair asks the one Hermione can’t see, then snorts and answers his own question “Seems pretty thick to me- but then bad blood will always out eh?”

“Bellatrix won’t like-” Hermione tries, and is rewarded with a shove from Rodolphus. She hits the floor, shoulder first, and hears a crack. The flash of pain comes a second later.

“You think I give a damn what Bellatrix will like?” Rodolphus standing over her, and she sees his spittle fly as he shouts “I am the master in this house.” _Okay wrong tack_ Hermione tries to think over the shooting pain running up her neck and down her arm. _Backtrack, backtrack, backtrack_.

“Vol- the Dark Lord would be angry if anything were to happen-”

The other man starts laughing. Hermione focuses on him for the first time through a haze of tears and pain. She’s probably hallucinating, but it seems like he has canines much too large for a human, and a big part of his face is covered in light fur.

“Well? I assume you’ve heard of me girl?” Lupin’s voice comes back to her _Greyback_ “Because I have heard nothing of you, from either Madame Lestrange or the _Dark Lord_.”

He advances “But Lestrange was right,” He sniffs the air towards her “You are a sweet little thing.”

He crouches over her. Then produces a nasty looking wand and runs it from her neck to the hem of her dress. She feels the fabric fall away. Now she’s wearing nothing but the woollen tights and her underwear. Greyback sniffs again, then to Hermione’s utter disgust drags his rough tongue from her navel to her collarbone.

Rodolphus seems to share her sentiment. He grabs Greyback by the cuff of his shirt, and pulls him off Hermione. “You can have her after we’re done.” The werewolf snarls “As usual.” Rodolphus is firm. Behind him Hermione can see MacNair unbuttoning his pants. She starts to sit up. Rodolphus pushes her back down with a flick of his wand. Briefly, as she thuds back on the ground, Hermione feels something other than deafening panic. A sort of tug. She thinks she hears something crash downstairs.

Then Rodolphus’ heavy weight is on her, but before she can cry out- it’s gone again. When she blinks, she sees MacNair cowering in the corner of the room, a dark patch on the front of his underwear. There’s a BANG and Greyback is blasted out of the study door. Rodolphus follows in the same fashion a second later.

Then there are hands pulling her up. Hermione tries to roll away, but a sharp voice hisses above her “I need to see if you’re hurt idiot girl!” A tug on her left arm makes Hermione scream. The edge of her vision darkens.

Bellatrix curses. Then yells “Pentus!” and the house-elf appears. “Fetch me my healing kit! Now!” then she goes right back to mumbling under her breath. A sort of numbness settles over Hermione’s shoulder. After a moment she finds she can open her eyes.

She’s laying on the floor of the study, or more accurately, the wreck of the study. Bellatrix is kneeling next to her, still wrapped in her fancy travelling cloak, and still muttering while waving some complicated pattern over her shoulder with her wand. Pentus reappears holding a leather satchel half as big as him. Bellatrix rips it out of his hands, and rummages inside it. She pulls out a small vial. “Drink this” Hermione notes groggily that Bellatrix’s wand is discarded forgotten next to Hermione’s elbow, and that the older woman’s gloved hands are shaking “It’ll help.”

_Curiouser and curiouser_.

Behind her Pentus disappears again with a soft _pop_. Hermione drinks the offered potion. It tastes foul, but it has the effect of the best batch of Lupin’s chocolate. Warmth radiates from her stomach outward.

She finds that she is still crying, and that she can stop. The pain in her shoulder is fading, and Hermione knows the magic is stitching her bones back together under her skin. Bellatrix has not noticed she’s run out of things to do. She’s just sitting on the floor next to Hermione, watching her, dark eyes angry and mouth a thinner line than ever.

“You left me here on purpose” Hermione surmises tonelessly. Their eyes meet, and Hermione feels a whole batch of accusations struggle to pass her mouth. But she has an odd sense that Bellatrix felt the whole incident, if not as strongly as being there first hand, and… changed her mind. Which has to be the only Hocrux perk she’s seen thus far.

So they don’t talk. A moment later, Bellatrix rouses herself, and slides one arm under Hermione’s to help her to her feet. She takes off her cloak and drapes it around Hermione’s shoulders, before helping her out of the room and up the two flights of stairs without magic and in silence. Hermione can feel Bellatrix trembling with what must be pure fury the entire way. She wishes she could hobble faster.

Once Hermione is deposited in her narrow bed, Bellatrix stands in the centre of Hermione’s shabby little cell for a moment longer. She looks strangely out of place in her expensive black dress. Her cloak, now that Hermione can see it in the light, is obsidian shot silk. She’s not all too keen on giving it back. The nights have been getting colder and colder.

Bellatrix is clenching and unclenching her fists. Her long polished nails leave deep half-moon marks. Hermione tries to look attentive.

Bellatrix looks to be on the verge of speaking. But after another moment she just closes her mouth and leaves.


	3. Black House - October

“ _I often consider myself as a figure in a foggy painting: faltering lines, insecure distances, and a merging of greys and blacks. An emotion or mood – a mere wisp of colour – is shaded off and made to spread until it becomes one with all that surrounds it._ ”

Virginia Woolf

 

Somehow this marks another turn in their relationship. Bellatrix starts talking to her again, while Rodolphus stops.

Hermione is surprised, but not really shocked, to find him sitting at the dinner table cutting his steak, when she makes her way downstairs after a dozing in bed all day. Bellatrix looks up for the barest of seconds from her seat next to her husband. Hermione’s place has been set as usual, and she breathes an internal sigh of relief when he doesn’t reach for her during dinner. He doesn’t even look at her.

The next day when she reports to Bellatrix in the study - which looks as neat as if yesterday never happened, probably thanks to Pentus - she’s not immediately consigned to letter writing. Instead Bellatrix lifts her quill and considers her. “You wondered why I don’t leave the house?”

Hermione starts spluttering out a negative response, which the older witch waves away with her quill “It was a fair question mudgirl.”

Bellatrix tilts her head, and Hermione feels like she’s being sized up for something. “You understand of course, that after the Dark Lord, I am the best known servant of our cause?”

Hermione nods. Carefully. She’d never given it much thought.

“I wouldn’t lie” Bellatrix continues “Not when they caught us, and not during those ridiculous trials.”

“Others did.” Her eyes are far away now “Karkarof, Snape… even my own family.”

She taps her quill. “And here I am. Under house arrest, while they are free to fumble the vital tasks he gives them. My dear brother Lucius should have caught your little friend _weeks ago_.”

“Is it-“ Hermione bites her lip then decides to stop being a coward “Is it because of me and, and the hocrux thing?”

Bellatrix looks at her, an eyebrow quirked “My, you do think well of yourself, don’t you? Nasty side effect of being around Potter too long?” She waves away her irritation “No, no – I’m here because that’s the way the world works.” She looks out the window “Greyback is equally well known, yet free to roam.” Her look turns dreamy “The Dark Lord feels I’m…unpredictable.”

“Well,” Hermione begins “I’m sorry.”

Bellatrix snorts “Thank Merlin you’re a better assistant than a liar” She jerks her head “Come, I have work for you.” Hermione carefully walks around the desk and looks over her shoulder.

“Among many other things the Dark Lord wishes to collect unique magical items of value” _Voldemort’s after weapons, stuff he can only get by stealth_ Hermione thinks watching Bellatrix’s eyes glitter “You’ve proven you’re not completely stupid.”

Hermione stares back. Then after a moment’s hesitation, when Bellatrix obviously expects it, she asks “What kind of items?”

“Ones that requires a great deal of research to ferret out.” She sighs, then her eyes flick back up to Hermione “Tell me mudbaby, have you ever heard of the Deathly Hallows?”

She gives Hermione a stack of books to cross-reference. As if on a whim, she adds a thinner volume, _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_. Hermione is just about to mention Dumbledore’s odd gift, then changes her mind. Pushing paper and cross-referencing is one thing, but actively helping the dark side is quite another. Even though this project has to be one of the most preposterous things she’s ever worked on. And she’s completed homework essays from Madame Trewlaney.

An all-powerful wand, a resurrection stone and a cloak of endless invisibility? _Please._ It sounds exactly like some El Dorado myth the muggle world had the good sense to abandon years ago. The cloak could be plausible she concedes, thinking uneasily of one she’d never mention to Bellatrix in a million years, but the other two sound like pure, power-hungry fancy.

 _The Tales of Beedle Bard_ is interesting enough. It’s a recent version and Hermione has fun noting where it derives from the first edition her old headmaster left her. The other books aren’t such stimulating reading. Mainly they’re records of old wizarding wills and genealogies.

She’d love to compare them to muggle family trees and blow a few holes in their precious pure blood theory, but she tells herself that’s something she can do after the war. Once they’ve destroyed five more pieces of Voldemort’s soul, not the mention the wizard himself, and have somehow convinced a convicted mass-murders soul to vacate her body. Which should all be a lark.

Bellatrix has her cross-referencing for magical cloaks passed on in three subsequent generations – which is just above the average lifespan of a standard enchanted cloak. So far she has found fifty-three instances of such a thing happening for two generations, although even then she doubts they are the same continuous coat. She carefully fails to note the will of the Peverells once they morph into the Potters across three volumes. Every few generations one wills a magical cloak to his eldest son in writing. Nothing you could pick at a glance, but odd all the same. _James Adrian Potter_ is the last recorded recipient. Not that Bellatrix ever needs to know that, but it makes Hermione pause.

“Anything yet?” Bellatrix asks at the end of the day. Hermione shakes her head, feeling for a fleeting moment like one of the golden trio again.

Bellatrix seems to have expected no different. “It would have been a cause for family dispute.” she muses darkly “Probably the cloak was liberated from the weaker, older party at the first opportunity.” She gestures vaguely towards the remaining stack of books “There’s always Greater Ireland and Scotland to check.”

Hermione has half a mind to tell her that not all families distrust each other, but thinks better of it. She just nods. Bellatrix puts down her own book. She’s been trying to find another Philosopher’s Stone. There was talk of one in Russia apparently. Hermione is surprised feel late afternoon sunlight on her face. She’d been so absorbed in research she had lost track of the time.

Bellatrix catches her wistful look outside and smirks. “Starved for the sun?”

“I suppose so.” Hermione says carefully, not certain what the borders of their newfound civility are. “I haven’t been outside in-” She quickly does some mental calculations. “-thirty-two days.” _Over a month since they caught me_ she thinks to herself. The air in the study seems extra stale after that depressing revelation. She wonders if Harry and Ron have made it to Godric’s Hollow yet.

“I can’t stand being cooped up inside all day either.” And with that Bellatrix holds out a gloved arm. “Come on.” Hermione stares at Bellatrix and then the proffered arm for a moment. Then, when what she thought was nothing more than a mirage refuses to waver she steps forward and touches her fingers to Bellatrix’s bicep, careful to avoid the strip of exposed skin between her glove and sleeve.

A jerk at her navel that pulls her forward-- and the next moment she is stumbling - stumbling away from Bellatrix and into startling brightness. Hermione avoids falling, just barely. A fat amber butterfly glides past her nose. The wind ruffles her dress, and the gentle breeze makes the small hairs on her uncovered arms stand up.

She’s in some sort of wild rye meadow dotted with late summer blue cornflowers. It moves in the wind like a small golden ocean. It also smells heavenly. Somewhere up high in the surrounding canopy she can hear birdsong.

Hermione draws in a shuddering breath. Her first full one it seems to her since the wedding. It’s fragrant with earth and sunshine. “ _Thank you_.” She says on the exhale. And she really means it. If this is an apology or a white flag or another elaborate trap, at this moment she doesn’t care.

Then she turns to smile genuinely at Bellatrix Lestrange for the first time in her life. The older witch is also standing in waist-deep gold, but her eyes are fastened on Hermione’s face. They grow darker at her words. Her “You’re welcome.” is very quiet.

Hermione doesn’t quite dare to look away from her quite yet. “What is this place?”

“I used to come here when I was younger.” Bellatrix shades her eyes and looks around the clearing critically. “It’s terribly rural of course-” Her gaze flicks back to Hermione’s face “-and I’d obviously catch you in a second if you tried to run.” Hermione flushes, which Bellatrix seems to take as confirmation of her words. She doesn’t seem angry though.

As a matter of fact the thought of escape hadn’t even crossed Hermione’s mind, and she was ashamed to realise it. Something stirs uneasily in the back of her mind. She pushes it away. She needs to focus.

“But we can visit here, from time to time, if it… suits you.” If Hermione hadn’t seen her lips move she wouldn’t have believed Bellatrix had spoken.

“I… I’d like that.” She says after a moment. Then, because her mental health can’t take another second of this weirdly forthcoming Bellatrix Lestrange, she turns back to the meadow.

They spend an eerily pleasant hour in the forest. At first, Hermione walks sedately along the edge of the clearing. After gaining enough confidence that Bellatrix isn’t going to hex her from where she’s perched on a boulder, idly levitating a pretty annoyed adder, she jogs a couple of turns. It feels wonderful, and she kicks off her coral flats, which really have seen better days by now, to feel the damp ground between her toes. When the sun starts to set Hermione takes Bellatrix’s proffered arm again.

They don’t speak. As they eat a silent dinner that night with Rodolphus between them, the peaceful atmosphere left over from the smell of earth in the room is almost a physical sensation to Hermione. She fills an old glass with water and blue blossoms that night to put on the windowsill in her attic. The geometric designs in the crystal cast pretty reflections from the other skylights. She sinks back into her bed and watches them.

The unease that’s been building in her all day roars into full life out of nowhere. What is she _doing_? Why hadn’t she run the second she stepped into the clearing? Even as Bellatrix’s Hocrux, the Order of Phoenix will be honour-bound to help her! And they would be better equipped than Hermione is alone.

Bellatrix’s abrupt mood swings are nothing to base her survival on. Sure, she’d smacked her husband and his friends across the wrist yesterday. But Rodolphus is still eating dinner with them isn’t he? _Merlin_ , Hermione thinks as she stares at her silly flowers, _how can I still be so stupid?_

Hermione can feel the beginnings of another headache stirring behind her eyes. The lights of London seem very far away. _I’m not going to get back to Harry and Ron as me, am I?_ She bites down on her bottom lip. _Bellatrix will forget about me, or I’ll slip up somehow, and Rodolphus will be waiting_. _And he won’t kill me. Him and MacNair and Greyback won’t kill me._

She has a vision of Bellatrix and her in the glade a few weeks from now. Except it’s not her, it’s some poor dead-eyed girl who won’t even be able to understand her N.E.W.T.S, and who’s got _bite-marks_ all over her. And Bellatrix won’t care- because she’s _Voldemort’s first lieutenant,_ and all that’s required of Hermione to be a hocrux is to keep on drawing breath.

Downstairs something crashes, and someone curses. Hermione can make out the angry inflection in Bellatrix’s voice but not the words. After a moment, Rodolphus joins in.

Hermione wraps herself in her thin bedclothes, makes herself very small, and tries to go to sleep. 

*** 

“Did you ever come across the philosopher’s stone in Hogwarts?”

Hermione looks up from her work. Bellatrix is indeed speaking to her, but judging by the frown in her voice, she won’t be much longer.

“No.” She tries to remember that distant school year “Got caught out solving Professor Snape’s potion puzzle.”

Bellatrix looks mildly impressed. “The greasy bat’s been crafting those since I met him. I didn’t know anybody else had ever solved one.”

She looks back down and says almost as an afterthought “Clever girl.”

 

***

 

They’re in the meadow again a few days later. Hermione has spent most of this visit draped on the big boulder, soaking in the sun. She’s bunched up Andromeda’s old jumper for a pillow, and is pretending to watch the fluffy early autumn clouds.

Bellatrix is collecting plants, just inside the first trees. Hermione knows she’s begun brewing some horribly complicated potion in the anteroom of her study. Not because Bellatrix told her, Merlin forbid, but Hermione knows from experience there are only so many uses for post midsummer henbane. She’s humming tonelessly and is in one of her new strangely content moods.

She’s hoping that Bellatrix is too absorbed to notice that twilight is slowly creeping in. Venus’ bright light has already appeared in the darkening skies. Hermione reckons she needs at least half an hour more before the other stars will start coming out. All she needs is one clear look at the constellations here. She didn’t study astronomy for nothing.

‘ _The stars are always the first step in finding the way home.’_ Professor Sinistra used to say. Professor McGonagall used to say all that was needed was a mind of ones own. So one out of two wouldn’t be half bad.

She’s almost certain the meadow is still on the British Isles. The plants aren’t different from home, and the weather matches what she can glimpse outside Black Manor. When she listens hard she can hear the rush of water off towards the east. A fairly large river she guesses. That’s where she’ll head if she makes a dash for it from here. Hermione’s never been the best swimmer, but the possibility of drowning doesn’t much scare her. There are worse ways to go. She’ll take that gamble.

“Time to go.” A gloved hand touches her arm. Bellatrix is still in her dreamy mood. Her hair floats around her face, and her cheekbones have the slightest hint of colour. Hermione isn’t stupid enough to take this for friendliness. She sits up, and grabs her jumper, just as the tug at her navel comes. _There’ll be another chance to see the constellations_ she tells herself. It’s only one plan of many after all.

If only her other plans were coming along any better. She’s moved on to the wizarding wills of wider Europe, now looking for especially potent protection charms. Bellatrix hasn’t asked her to fetch any books in days. She’s mostly in a focused haze of potion making. She forgets Hermione exists for hours on end. Hermione envies her a little for that. Belgian wills aren’t particularly thrilling, and her French is rustier than she realised. She’d rather be making a potion.

She’s also starting to doubt that Bellatrix has any books on Hocruxes – no matter how impressive her library is. Hermione had spent a few uncomfortable hours probing her memories, and recalled now that Bellatrix had seemed unfamiliar, except on a superficial level, with the spell she and her master had cast. The older witch certainly doesn’t seem to realise what a dangerous and uncommon thing it is to tether a soul fragment to a living creature.

What Hermione really _needs_ is her little beaded bag, probably still rotting in the party field. Some passing gnome has surely nicked it by now. She’d known the Hocrux books were rare, but in her fear for herself and her friends, she had momentarily forgotten all about them as best as she can remember.

She’s just finishing Jean De Smet’s impressively generous 1735 will, when Bellatrix emerges from the little side door. The smell of henbane clings to her. She’s yet to fail to astonish Hermione with her almost supernatural elegance. True - her flowing black lace over-coat is charred and smoking in some places - but Hermione kind of wishes she could’ve had someone to teach her how to pull that calibre of thoughtless charm off - especially in the midst of her studies. She might have gotten Ron’s attention quicker that way. Maybe she could find a book on the subject.

“It’s come out perfectly!” For a moment Hermione’s brain can’t quite comprehend the fact that Bellatrix is smiling (revealing some pretty big canines) and speaking to her. She smiles back uncertainly. It feels strange on her face.

Bellatrix hauls Hermione out of her chair, and into the next room, where a brass cauldron stands, filled to the brim with shimmering opalescent liquid. It smells vaguely acidic. Hermione is very aware of Bellatrix’s hand, still clasping hers, and the fireplace, which holds a merry little flame that occasionally flickers green. The Floo Network.

“Liquid Trace” Hermione breathes. Bellatrix’s hand squeezes hers tighter then releases it.

“Just a safety measure,” Bellatrix walks around the cauldron “Our hocrux link makes it practically impossible for you to leave of course, but a little extra security never hurt anyone.” Hermione stares at her. Bellatrix rolls her eyes. “Oh calm down. It won’t hurt you. I know what I’m doing.”

“Anyhow, you got me thinking,” Bellatrix continues, still watching the potion with glee “Even without you, Potter did manage to scrape through six years of Hogwarts. And Lucius certainly isn’t known for his resourcefulness.”

“But doesn’t mature trace attack the lymphatic system?” Hermione asks cautiously. “We studied it last year with Professor Slughorn, and he said it could cause fatal tumours if the weight of the subject and the dose weren’t precisely calibrated.”

“Poppycock,” Bellatrix murmurs looking at the leaping potion happily “An old wives tale to scare off the rabble.”

Hermione still has reservations, but would prefer to keep Bellatrix in this cheerful mood. And why should she care? If Harry and Ron ever got close enough to this potion and its maker, they were already as good as dead.

“How did you manage to brew it?” She takes a look around at the table of ingredients “I’ve heard it’s very complicated.”

“There are few in the wizarding world who can.” A mean grin flits over Bellatrix’s face “Snivelling Severus has never managed it.” She taps her lip “At last count I only knew myself, that fat git Slughorn and some shaman in Nairobi could stopper it in its non-lethal form.” She lists them off on her curved nails “And I’ve been a little busy to make much of it these last few years. Not many uses for it in Azkaban.”

It’s the first time she’s ever mentioned the wizarding prison in Hermione’s presence and something rough creeps into her voice. Hermione switches the subject. “How long has it taken you to brew?”

“A few weeks give or take” Bellatrix stirs “I had to step out to buy some rather choice ingredients before I could begin.” There’s an apologetic note in her words.

Hermione understands. “The day Mr Lestrange and his friends…?”

Bellatrix sniffs “Precisely.” Her eyes flick to Hermione. “I know you have some fantastic notion that I left you _undefended_ on purpose-”

 _Liar_ , Hermione thinks decisively. _Liar, liar wand on fire_. But she schools her face into a neutral expression. It’s interesting that Bellatrix feels the need to lie to her at all. Last Hermione checked she was nothing more than collateral to the older witch.

“Who taught you how to make it?” She’s guessing it must have been Slughorn. From what Harry told her the old Potion Master had been head of Slytherin around the time Bellatrix went to Hogwarts. He was probably great mates with witches as promising as the Black sisters-

“My father.” Bellatrix says, rather tonelessly.

Hermione judges another question wouldn’t result in physical harm. “This is your parent’s old house isn’t it?” Bellatrix nods still distracted. Nothing more is forthcoming.

“Well it’s really something.” Hermione concludes lamely, not sure if she’s talking about the potion or the house. Both scare her equally if she’s honest with herself.

“When they almost had you-” Bellatrix frowns, as if grappling with concepts far bigger than advanced potion making “I didn’t like it.”

Hermione struggles to change tack. She has no idea what to say to that, because how do you phrase ‘ _thanks you weren’t totally fine with your husband and his mates attacking me’_? She settles for silence.

“I’ve never had a problem with that-” Bellatrix stirs harder “Not since I joined him.”

“Well,” Hermione says, more irritated than anything, after a moment when Bellatrix seems to have fallen into deep disgust with herself “Maybe that doesn’t apply when you’re using someone as cold storage for part of your soul?”

Bellatrix looks up sharply and for a second Hermione fears she’s overstepped whatever weird boundaries they’re slowly establishing. Then Bellatrix snorts.

“Potter might’ve been onto something, keeping you around.” And then she’s stirring the potion harder then ever, and Hermione finds she’s smiling rather than frowning, because having a laugh with Bellatrix Lestrange is not something she would have ever pictured herself doing in a million years.

Hermione’s lays in bed much later, when it occurs to her that she didn’t even attempt to dash into the floo fire. She shifts and punches her lumpy pillow into shape. Where would she go anyway? She’s just shared a joke with Bellatrix Lestrange. She’s a lost cause for sure.

 

***

 

 

Their housebound limbo survives until October 1st.

Hermione has been keeping a tally in her head: first two weeks Bellatrix classic. One week: Rodolphus the charming, the week after: Rodolphus the creep. The last two: Bellatrix the weirdly friendly.

When Hermione comes down to breakfast on the first October morning, Bellatrix is already halfway through her coffee. She hates eating in the morning, and won’t have anything before lunch unless Pentus brings her something for morning tea. Hermione pauses by the door to marvel how weird it is that she knows that.

“Make it quick muddy” Bellatrix says, eyeing Hermione’s marmalade toast as she sits “We’re leaving.”

“To the meadow?” Hermione asks around a bite, absurdly hopeful for a second.

“No.” Bellatrix answers, scowling at her open mouth “Malfoy Manor.”

Hermione nearly chokes on her next bite of bread. She wonders if she heard correctly, it won’t do to ask again, but she could ask- “What for?” She makes sure there’s no food in her mouth this time.

“I’ve had a message,” Bellatrix flicks her wand and Hermione feels a bit of jam disappears from the corner of her mouth. Hermione feels her cheeks go red “And not a moment too soon- if I had to do any more paperwork I might have actually gone insane. Again.” Bellatrix puts down her wand and picks up her cup “Lucius has finally sealed his fate. He’s let the boy slip through his hands twice now.” Hermione puts down her toast. Suddenly she’s not very hungry anymore.

“I’ll start overseeing the hunt today” She sips. “No more house arrest for us mudgirl.”

 _Us_ , the word reverberates through Hermione’s mind. It does something funny to her stomach. Not Bellatrix and Rodolphus. Not Bellatrix and Pentus. Bellatrix and Hermione. _Us_.

“Why Malfoy Manor?” she manages, feeling very sorry for Harry and Ron.

Bellatrix shrugs, draining the last of her tea. “The Dark Lord is travelling on other matters.” She flicks her wand and the food disappears, right down to the last corner of toast Hermione is lifting to her mouth. “And the house is empty, except for my sister’s family. I’ll be out more often, and I’ll need someone trustworthy to watch over you. If you were damaged I would be…displeased.”

“Oh.” Hermione feeling like more like a trinket than a person. Why couldn’t Bellatrix have stuck part of her soul in a family heirloom like a normal homicidal maniac? “When do we leave?”

“Immediately.” Bellatrix nods towards her study “We’ll floo there.”

“Now?” Hermione looks up “My things- if I could just run upstairs-”

“What things? Those rags Pentus gave you?” Bellatrix snorts “Cissy wouldn’t let you cross the threshold in them.”

“But-“ Hermione knows that she doesn’t own anything in that squat little room really. But it would be a comfort to take her ruined party outfit. Remembering Malfoy’s stuck-up mother, she’s suddenly very conscious of how shabby she looks. She had chosen a dusty wool dress from the bottom of the trunk that morning, because she had assumed they’d stay indoors. Also because it usually put Bellatrix in a good mood to see the carved letters on her arm. Her shoes aren’t coral as much as they are colourless and stained.

“No buts,” Bellatrix admonishes, reaching for Hermione’s upper arm when she doesn’t move, and steering her out of the room. “I’ve sent everything we’ll need ahead with Pentus, and I’ve wasted half the morning waiting for you to wake up. Cissy will sort your clothes.”

Hermione hardly hears her, too busy marvelling at the firm, cool fingers above her elbow. Bellatrix hardly touches her for long, and never skin on skin since that awful stairwell episode. Where her skin touches Hermione’s there’s a feeling of warmth, and pure magic travelling between them.

Hocrux perk number two it seems.

Bellatrix notices it too. They’re in the corridor and she’s slowed her gait. Her thumb brushes absentmindedly, making the small hairs on Hermione’s arm stand up.

She turns and Hermione bumps into her. Bellatrix’s other hand finds Hermione’s face. Her palm is warm along her cheek and her thumb brushes gently along thin skin under Hermione’s eye. It tingles. There are lights flashing in Hermione’s vision and she feels like she could float away with contentment. _Who knew Hocrux magic could be so sweet._

“It’ll be different at my sister’s house,” Bellatrix breathes. “I’ve become-I’ll be different.” She amends after a pause.

“That’s alright.” Hermione manages through a fog. Bellatrix pretending to be insane won’t be any more tiring than this Bellatrix who she doesn’t entirely hate.

Bellatrix takes a strand of Hermione’s hair and winds it around her own fingers. “You know, I don’t remember what I expected you to be like.” Bellatrix’s words have a rough edge. It’s the clearest her voice has ever sounded to Hermione. The shadows around her eyes aren’t so much cosmetic as physical today. Funny, she always believed Bellatrix had the boundless energy of a toddler. Apparently not.

“I always pictured you as a female Potter.” Bellatrix snorts. “Imbecilic, and unable to see anything but your own heroism.” Hermione stares at her, not trusting herself to say anything, but trying to gauge where the older witch is going with this.

“Lucius hasn’t caught him yet,” Bellatrix moves her hand under Hermione’s chin and tilts her face up almost gently. “But _I_ will muddy, just like I caught you. Make your peace with that. _Soon_.”

“Sometimes-” Hermione begins. “Sometimes I wish we could have met another way. I think we could have been-.” _Something_. Not friends exactly. _Equals_. She breaks off, and prepares herself for the rebuke. Dirty blood, clean blood, blah, blah, blah.

But it never comes. Instead they stare at each other for another long moment before Bellatrix lets go and Hermione is left to hurry after her.


	4. Malfoy Manor - October

“ _You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making […] I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death_.”

    Severus Snape, The Philosopher’s Stone

 

Narcissa is perplexed by Hermione’s presence.

Ever since her and Bellatrix flooed in an hour ago, and the latter disapparated with a cheery _“I’m off!”_ Narcissa has looked like someone is holding curdled milk under her nose. She’s shown Hermione her room (beautiful but on the third floor- something you’d stick a second cousin in judging by the rest of the house), and enchanted a tape measure to take her measurements to be sent off to Master Wilkins ‘ _as soon as humanly possible’_.

Now they’re having tea in the sitting room. Draco and Lucius are out, and not due back till nightfall. Hermione sips at her tea. She glances at Narcissa again. If anyone could have created the polar opposite to Bellatrix, they would have probably reached Mrs Weasley. But Narcissa is unlike her sister in subtler ways. She’s beautiful in a cool, elegant sort of manner. Where Bellatrix has a dilapidated glamour, Narcissa is as fresh as the pale orchids in the vase behind her.

“You must tell me again my dear,” Narcissa puts down her cup and saucer “My sister is sometimes intolerably brief-” Her eyes skewer Hermione “- when did Hermione Granger become our ally?”

Hermione sighs and launches into her mountain troll story again.

 

***

 

Hermione’s clothes arrive in the afternoon. She’s managed shy small talk with Narcissa since she finished her fabricated tale of turning to the dark side. Mostly they talk about Draco. It’s odd hearing that he enjoys Astronomy, spends most of his holidays outdoors, and has a gift for animals. Hermione remembers Buckbeak, and tries not to show it.

There’s a chime from the entrance hall, and both Narcissa and Hermione look up. Narcissa stands. “Your new wardrobe is in your room Miss Granger.” She says not smiling exactly, but at least not looking like something died “We dress for dinner, but I’m sure you’ll want to change beforehand.” She gestures upstairs “I have work to do, but please find me if there’s anything you need before then.”

Hermione shuts the door to her room five minutes later, never gladder to stop talking in all her life. The constant lying she was getting a handle on, but Narcissa’s exhausting politeness was going to take some adapting.

She steps away from the door to look at her new surroundings more carefully. There’s a four-poster bed, a claw-footed writing desk, and a wardrobe. A small bookshelf and an armchair stand facing the fireplace. The bookshelf holds nothing but fiction, and all wizarding classics from what Hermione can make out. The walls are hung with tapestries and her window looks behind the great house, over a distant lake, ringed by dark pine forest. Hermione realizes with a pang that she’ll miss her pigeons.

She reads a little of _Cassandra and her Cat_ and sleeps fitfully for a few hours, on top of the dark blue coverlet. She’s always tired these days. She has nightmares about Rodolphus reaching for her and Bellatrix laughing at her pleas for help.

When she wakes darkness is setting in and someone, probably a house-elf, has lit the candles. Hermione shuffles out of ugly woollen dress, and only after a terrible struggle decides not to throw it on the fire. She might need it.

She opens the wardrobe and stuffs the old dress in the paper basket after all. When she slides into her new underwear, and matching slip, she mentally thanks Master Wilkins for making things in silk, rather than scratchy woollen fabrics. The clothes are a bit too Pansy Parkinson for her taste, but thankfully, amongst all the black lace and architectural dresses, Hermione finds an unassuming evergreen sheath. She also unearths a comb, and exhales when she sees that its one of the expensive magically detangling ones. Her hair is up and presentable in minutes.

There’s a tray of jewellery too, and, ignoring her usual instincts, Hermione pins an amber swallow near her throat. There’s even matching droplet earrings. That should convince Bellatrix that she can blend in and deceive with the best of them. Plus it should annoy her nicely, seeing as they’d sort of match the creepy bird skulls Bellatrix favours.

She spends a few more moments contemplating herself in the wardrobe door mirror. She looks nice, if a little like her Mum on the annual Dental Practice Christmas bash. She wishes she had her jeans back. More than that she wishes she were going down to have dinner with Ron and Harry and people who actually liked her. But she’s looking forward to seeing Bellatrix too. It’s strange to spend a whole day without getting insulted by her once.

The dining room is already alight with candles, but Hermione is only the second one to arrive. Draco sits at the end of the table, engrossed in a thick volume of hunting spells. He’s paler than she remembers him being. There’s a sallowness to his cheeks that wasn’t there last year.

“So it’s true.” He says when he spots her on the verge of turning around and leaving. “When Mother told us I thought she was joking.” His voice is still haughty, but the way his eyes scan the room is not. “Dark horse Granger. Aren’t you and Potter basically joined at the hip?”

Hermione doesn’t trust herself to speak so she just sticks out her chin and stares him down.

“And how will Weasley know his arse from his wand without you?” Malfoy smirks and she’s glad that his tone is infused some of his old cruelty. Draco at least is predictable in all this strangeness.

“I’m sure he’ll manage.” She replies airily.

“Well,” Draco sets aside his book. “As long as you don’t have any illusions about me being your next boyfriend, we should be fine, Granger.”

Hermione is just about to shoot back that _hell would have to freeze over first_ \- when the rest of the dinner party arrives. Narcissa and Lucius brush past her with cordial greetings. Draco receives a kiss from his mother. Bellatrix doesn’t look at her at all. There are scratches all over her hands. Narcissa clears her throat, and they’ve faded back into smooth skin by the time they are all seated.

Dinner is uneventful. Bellatrix barely touches her greens, or the stuffed fish, and if Hermione weren’t so busy fielding polite questions (Narcissa) and thinly veiled insults (her son), she’d worry. But she’s not. Worrying about Bellatrix Lestrange. No way.

Lucius meanwhile seems to be on another planet entirely. His hair is greasy, and his eyes are bloodshot. There’s the faint sour odour of alcohol, and unwashed clothing clinging to him. His son and wife ignore him completely. He eats everything on his plate, but methodically, seeming not to taste anything at all. After a few unanswered remarks, Hermione ignores him too.

 _I’ll be different_ , Bellatrix had said. Is this what she meant? Hermione had just assumed she meant to return to a crueller version of herself. To be cursed, and ridiculed Hermione could survive. In fact, she was beginning to develop a hypothesis that the body could grow resistant to certain curses. Like magical antibodies. Not anything she could test with any objectiveness in her current situation, but an interesting theory to mull over nonetheless.

To be ignored is a different kind of torture. She longs to ask what Bellatrix has been doing all day. The answer probably won’t be pleasant, but a slow growing fear gnaws at her. To lose whatever intellectual companionship they’ve built probably won’t be immediately life threatening at Malfoy Manor, but still. _She’d miss talking to Bellatrix_.

“And how was your day Mrs Lestrange?” She finally breaks, and over the spiced pumpkin pudding. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Draco pause mid-swallow of wine, his eyes going wide.

Bellatrix glances up at her, and even though she’s scowling, Hermione knows her well enough to read the bright spark of amusement in her eyes.

“Acceptable, _Miss Granger_.” She answers with sarcastic politeness.

Hermione nods, and eats another spoonful of dessert, pretending to consider the curt answer. She still feels Bellatrix’s gaze on her.

“I see Miss Granger’s clothes have arrived” Bellatrix stretches back in her chair, tilting her head to consider Hermione. Narcissa nods, casting an approving glance over Hermione’s dress.

“I had them place a rush order.” She says, lifting her goblet to Hermione. “You wear them well my dear.” Draco snorts, and it takes a monumental effort not to throw the contents of her bowl in his face. Lucius doesn’t appear to hear a single word.

“Thank you.” Hermione smiles what she’s starting to think of as her Narcissa-smile. Shy, but polite. Out of all of her less than attractive qualities, shyness was never a problem.

Bellatrix seems to have reached the same conclusion. “Oh the pretty mudblood rose is demure now?” She narrows her eyes. “How droll.”

“At least I’m not rude.” Hermione shoots back before she can help herself.

The table goes very quiet. Draco seems to be attempting to fold into himself, and Lucius is staring at her. Narcissa is watching Bellatrix “Bella, I’m sure Miss Granger didn’t mean –”

Bellatrix laughs and the Malfoys all jump half a foot off their chairs. “Stop blabbering Cissy, she meant exactly what she said.” Her eyes are fastened on Hermione, and instead of being scared Hermione finds she’s enjoying herself. Here is the Bellatrix she knows. Nasty and unpredictable and interesting.

“I did.” She says; relishing even more the way Draco shifts his chair back from the table. “How was your day Bellatrix? Really?”

Bellatrix considers her, and now there is a smirk playing around her mouth. “Taxing.” She gestures to Lucius “Cissy, your husband has left the Potter hunt in a right old mess,” She reaches for her goblet and downs her wine in one gulp, before pouring herself another. “The snatchers are an unfocused disaster, and there’s been an overreliance on torturing the extended Weasley clan to find out the Potter boys whereabouts.”

“Did –” Hermione watches the muscles in Bellatrix’s throat work. Her enjoyment is gone. “Were any of the Weasley’s killed?”

Bellatrix looks at her coldly for a moment. Hermione marvels how it came to this, how she came to not entirely dislike the woman who had tortured Neville’s parents to insanity, killed Sirius, and now possibly hurt one of the Weasley’s beyond-

“They certainly deserved it,” Bellatrix says “Blood traitors the whole lot of them.” She watches Hermione a moment longer then says “But no. Lucius was wearing kid-gloves.” Hermione catches herself before she sags with relief.

“It was a waste of time in any case” Bellatrix continues, “Ronald Weasley is laid up with Spattergoit, so there’s very little chance he’s adventuring around with Potter.” She narrows her eyes “And since you’re here with us, it would seem that the Chosen One is all alone in the world. Am I right?”

Hermione nods quickly. Bellatrix tilts her head and watches her.

***

 

Later that night, Hermione is just about to nod off, when she feels the mattress dip, and knows another person is in her room.

“I want to talk,” Bellatrix says conversationally after a moment.

“About what?” Hermione manages, proud that she hasn’t screamed, but confused by the way Bellatrix is just lying there, not doing much of anything, her shoulder just an inch away from Hermione’s. They’re both silent another moment, and Hermione fights the urge to sit up. Suddenly, Bellatrix’s breath is warm on Hermione’s ear.

“Ronald Weasley.”

“Wha –” Hermione tries to struggle up, but Bellatrix slings an arm around her torso. She wraps herself around Hermione like a vine. It’s not entirely unpleasant.

“He was with Potter and the werewolf when you helped them escape at the wedding.” There’s a sour note in Bellatrix’s voice now. “Wasn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose so” Hermione says, suddenly very sure where this is going. “But-but he’d been feeling off all week. His mum had him on some pretty complicated healing spells.”

She feels Bellatrix smile into her sleep warm skin. “You really are the worst liar muddy.”

Then Bellatrix licks Hermione’s neck, and it’s almost too much –little sparks start going off in front of her eyes— until, with a soft _pop,_ she’s alone in bed again.

 

***

 

These new henchmen of Voldemorts - “ _Snatchers_ ” Hermione mumbles from her room’s window seat, tasting the word and disliking it - begin to arrive the next morning.

They’re a motely bunch, all sorts of sullen men and boys with no women among them. They don’t apparate or floo directly into the Manor. Bellatrix makes them walk, all the way from the gate across the park. It’s basic psychology- and it’s almost below the older witch to use it - which is probably why it’s so effective. It makes Hermione wonder whether some are squibs – certainly they don’t rate high enough to be given a dark mark.

When she comes downstairs Narcissa is at her elbow instantly to steer her. She can hear the low murmur of many voices in the dining room. They end up in the library, where they find Draco already sitting at the study table, a plate of eggs and an untouched crystal glass of juice forgotten in front of him. He’s the colour of Harry’s foulest old socks. From the direction of the dining room there’s a thump then a scream. Hermione thinks she can make out Bellatrix’s high-pitched giggle.

“I want _results_ Finchley, not excuses-” Her sharp voice floats through the wall.

Narcissa lets go of Hermione and goes to her son. She clasps his shoulders and murmurs a few words into his ear. Draco relaxes marginally. Narcissa straightens and claps her hands. Two more sets of breakfast appear in front of the chairs across from him. Hermione bites back a reflex comment about the underappreciated services of house elves.

Hermione’s eaten three rashers of bacon, half a fried egg, and heard two more distinct screams, when Narcissa speaks. “Miss Granger, Draco tells me you were at the top of your year at Hogwarts?”

“I was,” Hermione answers evenly, looking at Draco, wondering exactly how nastily he’d actually phrased it. Draco however is studiously cutting up his toast, and refuses to meet her eye.

“Would you like to join Draco in his N.E.W.T studies?” At his mother’s words Draco looks up.

“ _Mother_ -” he begins in a tone of outrage.

“I have accepted your refusal to return to Hogwarts,” Narcissa hisses, eyes narrowing dangerously “But I will not squander your future chances at a respectable career. N.E.W.T.S are still key to that- no matter what your father _thought_.”

She spits the words with such venom that Hermione has to fight to not recoil when Narcissa turns to her, perfectly neutral and self-possessed again “Miss Granger had the highest O.W.L marks of the last half century – any company she provides can only help you Draco.” She tilts her head in an almost uncanny replica of her sister “And besides she’s on our side now.”

Right then, Hermione knows that Narcissa doesn’t believe that for a moment.

“Miss Granger?”

“I- yes, I’d like that.”

So Hermione spends a satisfying morning besting the youngest Malfoy at everything from History of Magic to Charms. She has to borrow Narcissa’s wand, and the chair she transfigured into a doe isn’t her best, but it was still better than Draco’s monstrosity of a fur-covered wooden stick creature. Thankfully the snatcher gangs begin to leave towards midday. The house is once again cloaked in a respectable silence. Unlike Snape, Narcissa is a fair teacher, and Hermione is almost glowing with smugness by the time the small library bell rings for lunch.

Draco storms out of the library, kicking a spindly side table, and toppling the stack of books balancing on it, on the way out. Narcissa just sighs, even as she flicks her wrist and the books begin to right themselves again. “Miss Granger,” Hermione looks up “A word.”

Narcissa looks at her until Hermione becomes uncomfortable. “I’ve met children like you before.” She finally says “You prize your intellect above all other things,” _That’s not true_ , Hermione thinks, _I just prize it above you and your lot, never above Harry and Ron, not since first year._ “You wield it like a sword.”

Hermione lets her mouth get the better of her on that point “And what? You don’t do the same with your looks?”

Narcissa’s eyes narrow. “Each of us have our strengths. Not to play to them would be foolish.” She tilts her blonde head again “But you aren’t playing to yours. You’re swinging them like a blunt club.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You know the two most prominent examples of your kind of strength that stand out in my mind are Severus Snape,” She smiles at Hermione’s scowl “And of course my dear sister Bellatrix.”

Hermione wonders what expression passes over her face. Whatever it is, it makes Narcissa tilt her head again, and sigh, as if they’ve agreed on a vital point.

“The difficulty with you over-precocious children is the universal problem of the clever – you are forever testing those around you for equal brainpower. When you find less, you are disappointed and superior. When you find a match, you become insecure and defensive.”

“I could never convey this to my sister- because I’m younger and in her heart of hearts, I’m silly baby Cissy.” She smiles, and Hermione can see the steel behind it “But I _will_ warn you, if only to save my son from a cruel classmate: temper your cleverness for those who cannot match it. Do it as much for their sake as for your own. I now know the exact limits of your magical skills because you were intent on shaming Draco with them. I know your weaknesses from one morning. There are dark times ahead Miss Granger, especially for your kind, and you’d do well to heed my advice.”

There’s a horrible hollow feeling in Hermione’s stomach. Narcissa’s right. Not completely- but her words have the definite sting of truth. She is not at Hogwarts anymore, and she would do well to remember that. There was no fair play out here. Only the Death Eaters and the Order.

“ _Your son_ has lorded his pure blood over me since we met-” 

“And I’ve given him the same advice,” Narcissa’s eyes flash “Know your coins and spend them well. Neither my husband nor my son understood, and their mistakes only cost us our reputation and livelihood. Think of what it will cost you Miss Granger.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because neither of us are stupid,” Narcissa sneers “There’s something you and Bellatrix are keeping from me – _something_ that ties you together.” Hermione looks at her wide-eyed “And my sister is all that stands between my family and the Dark Lord’s full wrath. I’d rather see you succeed than jeopardize that.”

Hermione looks down. “I understand… and – and I won’t forget it.”

“See that you don’t.” She waves her away “We’ll begin with Arithmacy tomorrow. Bellatrix wishes for you to join her in the dungeons for the afternoon. There is some potion work she is starting you on I believe.”

 

***

 

The entry hall of the manor is deserted, and Hermione makes her way across the gloom to the corridor that leads down into the dungeons. She remembers dimly walking the other way, doped up on Imperious and still bleeding. She touches the _M_ of her scar. She wonders if that girl would still recognize her.

There’s a soft sound and Hermione spins, clutching the doorway. Not everybody was gone after all. One of the snatchers, Hermione identifies him by his tattered coat and long hair, leans against the front door. He’s handsome she supposes. He certainly seems to think so, judging by the thin charcoal around his eyes. They stare at each other a moment. Then he winks at her and slips out into the light rain.

 _Interesting_ , Hermione thinks, already turning towards the dungeon.

 

***

 

Bellatrix is practically glowing.

Hermione pauses in the doorway to watch her unnoticed a moment longer. She used to watch her friends like this. Not that Harry and Ron were ever especially fascinating. But it was a comfort to watch Ron flick Harry with a bit of ink from his quill, or note how Harry still touched the bridge of his glasses while studying, as though to hold the two halves together, or catalogue one of the countless other ticks they performed as absentmindedly as breathing. _Always the observer_ , her mothers voice dances through her mind, _go to a party and you’ll find my daughter at its edge_.

Colour sits high on Bellatrix’s cheeks, and her eyes have a happy, if somewhat demonic, sparkle in them. The Potter hunt is suiting her. _Reviving her is more apt_ , Hermione thinks, _or is it me and the Hocrux, drawing the insanity out of her like poison from a wound?_ Voldemort is still abroad on his mysterious business, which leaves Bellatrix all but in charge. Hermione wonders if the other Death Eaters have noticed how cooly logical Bellatrix's methods have become. Or do they know about the hocrux? Will she come face to face with another human hocrux some day soon? _Will it be a friend?_ There’s a headache building just above her eyebrow. Hermione has learnt from experience that lengthy thinking on the soul fragment will only encourage it. So she lets the thought go and steps into the dungeon.

Pentus and Gilly are already flitting around the potion dungeon, alternately setting out ingredients, stoking the fire under the main pot and three smaller brass cauldrons. Bellatrix stands in the midst of them zooming ingredients off shelves, and shooting a small shock hex whenever either of them moves too slowly.

“Marvellous day,” She says when she notices Hermione “Some of the boys got overexcited and eviscerated old Crispin Creery in Devonshire, but not before he told them some very interesting things about Kingsley Shacklebolt’s whereabouts. He was his uncle you know.”

Hermione didn’t know, but she gets a sick feeling nonetheless when she pictures the snatchers tearing apart an old man with Kingsley’s eyes.

“What are we doing today?” She asks, shying away from any thoughts of _that_.

“ _You_ are brewing. The snatchers need basic potions.” Bellatrix sneers “I would tell them to sort their own injuries – but three of them are already out of commission from drinking a bungled vigilance tonic. I’m leaving it to you muddy.”

“Me?” Hermione snorts “How do you know I won’t poison them all on purpose?”

“Pentus will supervise.” Bellatrix is already halfway out the door “And of course you’ll test each potion personally.”

Hermione feels foolish for having sort of hoped- hoped for some time to talk-

“Of course” Hermione answers to an empty room.

 

***

 

Draco won’t meet Hermione’s eye at breakfast in the dining room the next morning.

And she actually feels a little bit horrible. It’s strange seeing herself on this side of the bullying equation. It makes her nauseous to grit out “Good morning Draco,” but she does it. The prat doesn’t even stop eating. Narcissa at least smiles almost approvingly. “How did you sleep Miss Granger?”

“Fine, thank you,” Hermione answers, casting her hocrux senses out to the silent second floor “Is Bellatrix already gone?”

Narcissa, to her credit, only blinks once “There was business in London to attend to.” After a moment she adds “She sent word that she’ll be back in a fortnight. Don’t forget to drink your potion.”

Mature trace might be a wonderfully complicated potion, but Hermione does wonder if it would be so hard to add sugar to it. She drains her goblet under Narcissa’s sharp eye and grimaces

“What’s the plan for today?” she asks with all the interest she can muster. Even to her own ears, her voice sounds flat.

 

***

 

It’s probably good that Hermione’s been relieved of all her old research duties, because she’s not sure she could have found an enchanted toilet seat, let alone signed Bellatrix’s name convincingly.

Draco, Hermione and Narcissa spend their mornings in the extensive Malfoy library together. Hermione tutors Draco in N.E.W.T level Arithmacy and Transfiguration after it quickly becomes apparent to all of them that she has the most aptitude. Draco is in charge of the occasional expeditions around the estate for field Astronomy and Care of Magical Creatures. Narcissa leads the rest. Afternoons are devoted to antidotes in Pentus’ surly but thankfully silent company.

She sees Bellatrix at dinner, and makes a point to be as audacious and cutting to the older woman as she dares. But their game seems to have lost some of its flavour, and Bellatrix is increasingly distracted when she does show up. Lucius is always at her side, more often fetching things, rather than doing any brainwork. Hermione never sees her alone, and it is hard to pretend to be a Dark Lord supporter at the dinner table while asking after the welfare of the Weasley family.

It feels good to be learning again, but most days Hermione wakes up feeling tired, and falls into bed exhausted. Her anger runs frighteningly close to the surface these days. Once she snaps at the Malfoy’s remaining house-elf, Gilly, just because the elf frightens her coming out of a secret passageway. She cries herself to sleep over that.

“Are you alright?” Narcissa asks her over dinner one night. It’s just the three of them. Bellatrix didn’t even send a message this time.

“Fine,” Hermione lies brightly. “Just worrying about this Charms quiz.” Draco grunts in agreement. Narcissa frowns some more.

“Don’t worry so much Miss Granger,” She says, “You’re a clever girl.” She smiles at her son “You Mr Malfoy, on the other hand, are lazy and overconfident.” Draco gives one of his rare laughs, and Hermione smiles in spite of herself. Narcissa’s eyes remain on her though.

 

***

 

They celebrate the capture of Kingsley Shacklebolt with a dinner that consists of some sort of gamey tasting meat with a cranberry sauce, which as Narcissa explains quite proudly, has all come from the Malfoy park.

Bellatrix just grunts and continues tearing into her portion. Both her and Lucius look like they need about a week’s sleep. A good chunk of Lucius’ hair has been burnt off. Kingsley didn’t go down without a fight. Hermione eats in slower, measured bites. She listens to Narcissa and Draco argue over the finer properties of his failed Wolfsbane potion. She sips at her wine. She tries not to think.

When she finally does look up, she sees that Bellatrix is watching her. She searches inside herself for something shocking to say, and comes up dry. _What’s the point anyway?_ She wonders dully. _I’m as good as dead._

Studying for her N.E.W.T.S was something she’d been looking forward to since her O.W.L.S… but she’d wanted to take them to start a life in the magical community. She wanted to make a change. Now all she takes in, when she reads about the Great Goblin Revolts, or the fifty-nine uses of gillyleaf, is that none of it will ever apply to her life, because her life is as good as written.

So she looks back at Bellatrix, expressionless, and after a moment something seems to fall away from her. That burning purpose she’d always had to learn, to impress and to just _be_.

It feels like the worst defeat yet.


	5. Malfoy Manor - November

_“You know your former self like a tooth spinning in its own blood; its clawlike root is another weapon you’ve lost"_

Ian Khadan

 

She keeps going with her studies. Some people, mostly Ron, would have chucked that bit first.

Hermione doesn’t stop herself these days when her mind wanders to her friends. She lets herself orbit Harry’s horribly untidy hair. She thinks of Ginny’s smile. Of the squeak in Ron’s voice when she shocked him. She notes the wrinkles on her parent’s faces when she took their memories away. She hovers with the disapproving note in Luna’s voice whenever they argued. She traces the curve of Neville’s ears.

“Look at the fat one” Draco murmurs, breaking her out of a joke Fred had told some happy Burrow evening. Hermione shoves him. Not lightly either.

“It’s not nice to call someone fat Draco” She hisses.

“But he _is_ fat!” Draco whispers back angrily, brushing dirt off his robes.

They’re out in a small patch of woods, watching a group of common wood imps construct their winter habitats. Hermione finds, when he isn’t speaking, she can even find comfort in her former antagonist. Draco’s hair alone brings back memories of countless Quidditch matches, of standing in Hagrid’s huge shadow and cheering until her voice was hoarse.

Narcissa is out for the day at Knockturn Alley. Usually, she only asks Draco if he’d like to come along. He always refuses, and Hermione notices the shakes in his hands tend to get worse on those days. But this time she’d also asked Hermione. It was odd, given that they both knew there was no way she’d be allowed to go (among other things Bellatrix had given strict orders to her sister to ‘keep her out of sight’) but it was a nice gesture.

They watch the imps a little longer, until Draco stretches and declares he’s hungry. They set off back across the vast park that surrounds the Manor. Neither of them speaks. Draco has fallen back into one of his dark moods, leaving Hermione to wonder again what the hell happened to him last year.

They’re half way across the green when she spots it. At first she thinks it’s a silvery comet, hurtling at them from the overcast sky. She lifts her arm to point it out to Draco, but he’s already spotted it, and holds his wand at the ready. Hermione bunches up her fists, feeling useless.

A moment later he lowers it. It’s not a comet at all, but a silvery, translucent ibis. It hovers in front of them for a moment, then opens its curved beak and speaks in a man’s voice.

“Harry Potter captured at Lovegood House - requesting reinforcements immediately.” The patronus bird repeats its message once more then wavers and disappears.

They both stare stupidly at the spot where the ibis hovered a second ago. Draco recovers first.

“That _idiot_ Travers- he must think that my aunt is here all day!” He looks at Hermione as if seeing her for the first time. “We have to go and help them,” A slightly unhinged gleam comes into his eyes “If I can catch Potter, my father and I will be pardoned.”

Hermione stares back at him. _That’s right_ a smiling mean part of her mind says _the little git doesn’t know what you really are_. Narcissa might suspect, but Draco had taken her conversion at face value. He didn’t even question why she didn’t leave the house. The prat didn’t even ask why she’d been using Narcissa’s wand for spellwork.

“Alright,” She says, holding out her hand, praying that he doesn’t ask her why she needs to side-apparate “Let’s go.”

Draco smiles at her, and for half a second she’s actually a little bit sorry for the world of trouble she’s about to get him into. “Potter’s ass is toast.” He grins. And that’s the end of her sympathy.

There’s a jerk at her navel, and suddenly she’s standing in the oddest house she’s ever seen. The walls all seem to be tilting. From above she hears the crash of spells, and muffled shouting. Draco lets go of her hand and makes for the stairs. Hermione stands in the main room a bit longer. Her heart is beating very hard. Luna and her father didn’t live very far away from the Weasley’s and the Weasley’s party field and- _her little beaded bag_.

Above her she hears Ron yell “Expalliamus!” followed by a crash. Something deep inside her burns fiercely to run up the stairs, and join her friends. Her mind though is faster. The beaded bag was full of Hocrux books. Full of her salvation. Harry and Ron were nothing but selfish comforts right now.

Her decision is made for her when the giant horn in the corner of the room distends weirdly and then begins to ripple. Hermione only just leaps outside the door in time. There’s a ringing in her ears and she’s covered in soot. Harry and Ron will have to fend for themselves a little longer.

She gets up, stumbles a few times, then sets off at a quick jog for the hill covered with old apple trees, behind which the Burrow lies. She’s wheezing by the time she reaches the shredded main pavilion. The Burrow is nothing more than an ash covered wreck behind it. She scans the dancefloor. There are no dead bodies at least, although Hermione supposes they might have been removed by now. There’s lots of rotting food, smashed wedding giftboxes, and- there! Underneath one of the long banquet tables the spots the glimmer of beads. She rips a few tufts of grass out of the ground in her haste to grab it. But it isn’t her bag. The shape’s all wrong, and when Hermione pops the clasp there’s nothing but a few hard-boiled sweets and some tissues inside.

She’s scanning the east side when something sparks underfoot, and Hermione looks down to see- to see- _her wand_. Vine wood and dragon heartstring. Ten and three quarter inches. _Good for transfiguration_. Tears spring to her eyes. The two pieces are hanging feebly by a few centimetres of fleshy fibrous strands, and Hermione deposits it in her pocket.

There’s a thick pillar of smoke coming from the Lovegood’s direction now. Time’s running out before her trace brings Bellatrix. Hermione considers the ruined Burrow, and her options, one last time. She could make a run for it. The Order surely still stands, and she could get in contact with her friends. _The hocrux though_ that nasty voice in her mind whispers, _what’s a mudblood to do about that teensy bit of soul?_ There’s no way she’s endangering any of them like that. Bellatrix would rip them apart. If not personally, then through Hermione.

She reaches Draco just as he begins to regain consciousness. He’s lying in a bush of meaty purple leaves, covered in soot and plaster. His leg is bent at an unnatural angle, but he surprises her, clutching his wand in a bone-white hand and mumbling a numbing spell. The other Death Eaters, Travers and Selwyn, are still knocked out on the garden path. Neither Harry, Ron, Luna nor her father are anywhere in sight.

“Are you alright?” She asks stupidly. Draco gives her a look of deepest loathing, but nods. After a moment he asks “You?”

Hermione checks herself for the first time. There’ll be a pretty impressive bruise on her side, and there’s a big scrape on her chin, but otherwise she’s fine. She does wonder how much trouble they are in. No beaded bag, and she isn’t looking forward to-

“ _You what_?” Bellatrix’s shriek is a hundred times worse than she thought it would be.

One of the Death Eaters has regained consciousness and is feebly attempting to explain what happened. Bellatrix silences him with a sweep of her wand.

“ _You had Potter here and you let him escape_?” She slashes with her wand. Selwyn is lifted like a ragdoll and thrown into the small garden pond. She’s just about to take aim again, when she spots Hermione and Draco. She freezes. Hermione swallows thickly.

Then Bellatrix is in front of her, apparating directly nose to nose. Her clawed hands grip Hermione’s face. “ _What-_ ” she hisses her eyes impossibly dark.

“It was my idea Aunt,” A tremulous voice from somewhere below Hermione speaks. Bellatrix looks away from Hermione to stare at Draco. Hermione joins her, totally in shock. “Travers sent a patronus to our house- and I thought me and Granger could help.”

Hermione looks at Draco, who’s gotten even paler and is clutching his thigh miserably. Bellatrix snarls. “Travers!” The other death eater rights himself and stumbles forward. “Take Draco back to my sister’s house.” She fixes him with a dark look “Do be sure to explain the entire _scope_ of your mistake to her.” The man grimaces but does as he’s told. Hermione hears another faint pop and knows that Selwyn is gone too.

Then it’s just Hermione, Bellatrix, and the wind.

Bellatrix fixes her eyes on Hermione’s again. “You didn’t run.” She says.

“No.”

Bellatrix frowns. “Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione whispers. All her clever reasons seem negligible now. Surely there would have been somewhere she could have found other books in peace without endangering her friends. She could have gone into hiding in the muggle world. The trace must wear off at some point. Why had that not occurred to her?

“What’s happened to you?” Bellatrix asks, and there’s a note in her voice Hermione’s never heard before. It’s not anger precisely. Nor is it patronising. She continues before Hermione can answer. “You’ve been quiet these last few weeks, and Cissy says – ” She stops abruptly and angles Hermione’s face up. “Has somebody hurt you?”

Hermione hiccup giggles then, because it is just so absurd, Bellatrix Lestrange, who threatened to kill her last time they talked and tortured her personally on several occasions, asking if _anybody has hurt her_. Hermione shakes her head, face still squashed between Bellatrix’s hands. Then she bursts into tears.

Neither of them seems to know what to do with that. Hermione doubts Bellatrix has much patience for weepiness. She surprises herself again when she pushes forward into the circle of Bellatrix’s arms and curls her arms tighter around the other woman’s neck. _I could choke her_ Hermione thinks between sobs, _I could choke her and be free_. But her arms fail to tighten.

“Why don’t I hate you?”

It’s maddening and wonderful the way their Hocrux bond makes every inch of Bellatrix Hermione can reach feel like home. In her arms Bellatrix is a wonderful mix of sharp and soft and, actually slightly shorter than Hermione. The pattern of her skin through the lace of her décolletage hums right to Hermione’s heart. She feels a touch on her shoulder blades for a second, then a brief shift of gravity.

The smell of clear air and earth calms her enough to let go, and sit on the boulder Bellatrix has led her to. After another moment Bellatrix crouches in front of her. She stays quiet until the last of Hermione’s sobs.

“It’s hard to hate the things you’re supposed to sometimes”

Hermione looks up through watery eyes. “And what would _you_ know about that?” she spits.

Bellatrix doesn’t rise to it. She looks around the meadow instead. “When I was a little girl, I preferred these wild flowers over any bouquets our house elves arranged.” She gestures weakly “My father made it clear that the proper way was to scorn the weeds. It wasn’t one of his longer lectures- but it still rings in my mind to this day.”

“I see how that simplistic anecdote applies,” Hermione begins, adrenaline and tears eradicating any sense of caution “but I think my situation is a little more complex.”

Bellatrix snorts. And drops her arms.

“You caught me muddy- I always preferred roses.” She plunks down next to Hermione “I just thought the idea would cheer you up.”

Hermione plucks a faded flower near her knee. “And what? The humble cornflower represents me and the rest of my mudblood ilk?”

“They are very pretty – especially in the spring.” Bellatrix says apologetically. Hermione chances a glance at her. Her face is dark and terribly striking in twilight. Hermione studies the aquiline curve of her nose, and for the first time envies Rodolphus for having had the chance to be properly matched with this woman.

“And for what it’s worth I am sorry you are one.”

“What?” Hermione asks, too confused by the realisation that she’s jealous of Bellatrix’s Death Eater husband.

“A mudblood. You’re a gift to Potter, and worth at least seven of my idiot nephew.” Bellatrix levitates a blossom, and they both watch it bloom under Bellatrix’s magic. She tucks it behind Hermione’s ear. “You must know that.” Hermione can only stare at her growing dismay.

“But this- this is exactly why I can’t _believe myself_.” She almost stumbles in her haste to stand “You have the _nerve_ to sit here and tell me I’m special _despite_ my bad blood!”

Bellatrix frowns “If you’re quite done -”

“What would have happened if I wasn’t your hocrux, and we’d met at some point and-”

“I’d have killed you” Bellatrix answers without pause “What?”

Hermione wonders how her face must look. Bellatrix will surely tell her any minute now. But the older witch holds her gaze and her silence.

“I thought I was so wonderfully brave and clever?”

She feels for the flower near her ear. It’s gone. It must have fallen when she moved.

“There is a natural order to this world,” Bellatrix sighs, as if explaining to a spoiled child “If magic continues to be diluted, one day it’ll fail. Did you never hear of the fall of Rome pet?”

Oh this is the rabbit hole. This is hell. “Really? You’re going to use the same line as the _conservative party_?”

“What?”

“It’s a muggle political faction- imagine the dumbest of the dumb muggles” Hermione cups her hands and yells into the surrounding forest “Oh don’t forget _the fall of Rome_! They were much too multi-cultural – never mind that their society was already flawed and crumbling from within! Never mind that allowing foreigners actually helped Rome survive!” She looks up at a stunned Bellatrix “ _The fall of Rome_!” She even pumps her hand sarcastically.

Bellatrix’s eyes are very wide. It occurs to Hermione that she has just made fun of Voldemort’s best lieutenant and the philosophy that had obviously steered her life to this point. Again. And that she’s still breathing. For now.

She feels good otherwise though. Like her plan didn’t go horribly awry. Like they’re having another barbed conversation at dinner, except way deeper. She hopes Bellatrix will at least answer before she maims her or whatever. Hermione wonders who fed her that crap.

“Muggles know about ancient Rome?” Bellatrix looks faint.

Hermione starts to laugh, then realises Bellatrix isn’t joking. “Uh yeah they know about it…seeing as Romans were, you know, muggles?”

“They were wizards.” Bellatrix says, very finitely, but something in her look is uneasy.

Hermione sinks down “Yeah some of them probably were- but the vast majority were muggles Bellatrix. Wizards have never had a population that big.” That is one of the very first facts taught in the first History of Magic lesson, so if Bellatri-

“You’re lying.” Bellatrix is still strangely wide eyed, like this is all some big surprise, which couldn’t be because she’s old for merlin’s sake! Unless-

“Did you ever take muggle studies when you were at Hogwarts?” Hermione asks gingerly, fully prepared to dive out of the way of any unforgivables.

“They didn’t teach it,” Bellatrix says archly “Modern nonsense.”

“Well muggles did lots of stuff” Bellatrix’s eyes flash “ _Things_ ” Hermione amends. “They may not have the instantaneousness of magic but- for example who do you think invented trains?”

Bellatrix looks positively outraged now. Hermione forestalls her by adding, “I mean obviously wizards added improvements- or who thought of, I dunno, that corset you’re wearing?”

Bellatrix waves her words away “Yes, yes muggles are alright at non-intellectual tasks. Their world is overstuffed with things.” She eyes Hermione gloomily “London is a positive nightmare these days.”

“Exactly!” Hermione says jumping on the point “Can’t you imagine what mental gymnastics go into muggle infrastructure? Or architecture? You can’t just wave a wand and have it come out perfectly! They have to think and plan.”

But Bellatrix seems to have reached the end of her tether. “Isn’t it enough that I don’t detest you?”

“No” Hermione swallows thickly “It isn’t. You’re cleverer than that.”

But that apparently was too much, because the next thing she knows she’s standing back in her bedroom, catching only a flash of Bellatrix disappearing.

 

***

 

A loose floorboard is a good hiding spot for her broken wand. At midnight, she takes out a blank schoolbook, under her covers, using her broken wand for a flimsy _Lumos_.

 _Harry used to study this way_ she thinks. Skinny thirteen-year-old Harry powered by three stale birthday cakes and her Mum’s favourite healthy snacks, who had survived worse than this. She begins to write everything she can remember from Dumbledore’s books.

Affairs at Malfoy Manor are a little strained after the Lovegood incident. Narcissa is still fuming, both at Draco and Hermione for taking it upon themselves to play the heroes. She forbids all further unsupervised excursions to the grounds, and confiscates Draco’s wand outside of their studies.

Narcissa heals her bruises personally, lips thinning with every wince Hermione let escape. A hairbrush zooms across the room, into her hands, and Hermione nearly falls off her chair when the older witch moves behind her, and begins to untangle Hermione’s soot-ridden braid. She’s gentle, just like her Dad was with his clumsy pigtails, all those years ago. Hermione relaxes.

“You have been reticent with your studies.” Hermione has been expecting this, and is relieved. This she knows.

“I’m sorry,” She says, bolstered by all the hocrux facts her mind had retained without knowing it, and truly meaning her words “I’ve been distracted.”

“My sister is opposed to you continuing with your NEWTS.”

That feels like a slap. “Oh.” is all Hermione can say.

“Why are you really here Miss Granger?”

It had never occurred to Hermione that Narcissa even truly liked Bellatrix. But there is hurt in her voice. Pain of being kept in the dark about a loved one. “She keeps you so close,” Narcissa continues, her brush strokes still gentle and even “Why is that?”

Hermione wonders what would happen if she told Bellatrix’s younger sister the truth. ‘ _Well, you see she’s cut off a bit of her soul, and stuck it in me-’_ but immediately discards the notion.

The park is mist-shrouded and colourless outside her window. Hermione tries to imagine Narcissa waking up in her unknown rooms each morning, knowing that she is all that stands against the failure of the vast grounds. Knowing that her husband is lost, and her son is following closely behind. Knowing that, in the end, she is ornamental. She has less power in this whole war than even Hermione.

“She comes to you at night.” This isn’t even phrased as a question. So Hermione just lets Narcissa believe what she wants. She wonders idly how many centuries of women have had this conversation in this house. Obviously not about _female_ _Death Eaters_ , but about actual lovers- who copied poems for them, and brought them flowers and-

“From what Draco told me, I’d never have picked you to betray your cause out of naïve infatuation.” Narcissa deftly divides Hermione’s hair into sections with her wand, and they begin to braid of their own accord. Hermione makes a non-committal noise. They’re silent for a while.

“And you haven’t- that much is clear.”

Hermione turns to look up at her, mindful of her still-rotating hair. Narcissa’s eyes are bright. “But Bella is more herself than she’s been in years, and though you both think me a fool, I would be one to question that.”

“You will continue with your NEWTS. You’re too bright to be wasted. And Merlin knows Draco needs someone his own age around.”

 

***

 

Hermione’s life at Malfoy Manor takes on something that resembles order after that.

Mornings are devoted to N.E.W.T studies in the library. There is something gratifying in drawing Draco out of his self-imposed austerity, even if only to argue an academic point. The Lovegood fiasco seems to have knitted them closer together, and for the first time Hermione simply appreciates that in some fields, Draco is not a complete brat.

Afternoons she spends in the dungeons, in Pentus’ surly company, brewing various tinctures and antidotes for the snatchers. It’s challenging work. Simple healing potions and pain mufflers have been at her disposal since second year, but she spends an gruelling week leaning over the manor library’s pristine copy of _Potion Making for Pleasure and Profit_ to create a temporary invisibility draught.

She wonders where Bellatrix is keeping her mature trace, and if she’s found any other victims to use it on yet. For someone who can brew a potion of such calibre, Bellatrix is surprisingly block-headed in even O.W.L level potion making. Hermione points out as much to her, one afternoon when the older witch is hanging around her cauldron again, and is on the brink of turning a perfectly good sleeping potion comatose, with double the amount of nightshade. Which would all be fine if Hermione wasn’t the one personally testing it.

“How can somebody who knows how to brew a trace potion – _even think_ -” she begins exasperatedly, before moderating with “I mean obviously, it’s a natural mistake-”

“My father administered the trace potion to us until we married,” Bellatrix answers absentmindedly “It was in my own interest to know it.”

Hermione doesn’t have the slightest clue what to say to _that_ , because honestly _what the hell was wrong with these pureblood idiots_ \- “Stop looking at me like that,” Bellatrix snaps “It was a common practice.”

“That doesn’t make it _right_.” Hermione bites back before she can help herself. Something near her heart gives an uneasy pulse, and she looks up to see Bellatrix staring at her with something like bewilderment.

The next week, Draco tugs at her sleeve as she’s writing, completely ruining the last lines of her rune translation, which she’s just about to tell him, following his pointing finger out the window. It’s snowing outside.

Narcissa gracefully postpones their Transfiguration revisions, and before Hermione knows it Draco is throwing her cloak and scarf at her, and they’re walking through the rapidly growing layer of snow on the lawn. She only catches a flash of malice in Draco’s face before she feels a clump of snow slide down her back. Not having a wand she’s forced to retaliate manually, and Narcissa fusses over Draco’s soaked clothes until they are forced to return.

It’s still snowing later that night when she sits at her writing desk, her lined book nearly half full of hocrux notes in her old Hogwarts shorthand, and still no closer to an answer. More horrifying is the thought that it’s nearly _December_ for Merlin’s sake. She’s never been away from Harry and Ron for longer than two months since first year.

No Daily Prophet owls ever arrive at Malfoy Manor, and Hermione is forced to rely on the scraps of information Bellatrix drops at times. The boys haven’t been caught. That much is certain. But are they succeeding in their mission to find Hocruxes? No paper would tell her about that.

She sets her quill back to paper and continues to write.


	6. Malfoy Manor - December

_“This is what you do. You make a future for yourself out of the raw material at hand.”_

Michael Cunningham

 

Christmas advances on the Manor with little of its usual cheer.

Upon Narcissa’s request, the house elves have put up a single elegantly festooned tree in the entrance hall. Hermione gets the distinct feeling that they usually decorate more. She supposes the constant coming and going of snatcher crews kind of dampens the mood.

All the occupants of the manor fall deeper into moodiness as the holidays approach. Bellatrix has taken to stringing leaders of various snatcher troops up from invisible bonds from the ceiling, whenever they bring news that displease her, which seems to be more often than not these days.

“They’ve scattered underground like rats,” Is all Bellatrix will say when Hermione cautiously brings up the subject. They’re brewing again. Well Hermione is brewing; Bellatrix is practicing her locating spells. Hermione has a feeling Bellatrix is humouring her after her breakdown, or whatever that thing that they don’t talk about was. Which nearly makes her feel pathetic enough to tell the other witch to go away. Nearly.

“And Kingsley’s proving to be a tough nut to crack.” Bellatrix spins her wand above a cauldron full of clear water. A few murky human shapes resolve then disappear. “That old bag Dumbledore taught him some tricks.” And though Hermione doesn’t visibly sag in relief, or clap her hands or anything, Bellatrix still narrows her eyes and makes her brew half a dozen extra bottles of strengthening syrup which requires nothing less than two of her own _whole_ fingernails per dose. Narcissa always grows them back for her, but still.

The snatcher leaders don’t have a much better time of it. Hermione flinches the first time she crosses the entry hall, only to have a goop of spit hit her hair. When she looks up she sees _Marcus Flint_ of all people. He makes a rude gesture with his trapped hand, and takes aim again. She hurries towards the dungeons.

On December 21st Narcissa announces that they’ll take a break from N.E.W.T.S until the New Year. Draco shoves his books away from him at once, but Hermione is slower to celebrate. Her suspicions are confirmed the next day, when she finds she is on top of all of her potions for the snatchers. She doesn’t dare risk brainstorming Hocruxes in broad daylight, and there’s something depressing about studying in the Malfoy library alone.

Draco and Narcissa depart early the next morning for a stay at the Zaibini Estate. They walk across the park to apparate at the gates, as much for the exercise as for Narcissa to calm Draco down. Hermione watches them from her bedroom window. In the gloom, they’re nothing but two nearly identical blonde haired specks in dark cloaks. With a pang, she realises she’ll miss them.

After breakfast the weather clears, and she decides a walk around the snow-covered grounds is in order. She takes her wand fragments along, with the vague plan of perhaps trying some small apparation near the warded gates. The two fragments taunt her. She can perform a decent _Lumos_ and even a shaky _Alohomora_ , but apparating is serious magic. Circumventing wards is even more so. There are worse things that can happen to a person than splicing. Hermione stands there, watching the snowdrifts on the other side, thinking of the trace, the horcrux, and all the ways she’s failed her friends. She turns away. There’ll be other times.

Bellatrix and Lucius are out again on their endless business, so she ends up in the library after all, and is just beginning the second chapter of Tiberius Mandalay’s _A Pure-Blood’s Treatise On The Ailments of Wizarding Kind,_ which is horrible and fascinating in equal measure, when she hears the front door slam.

Her first instinct is to hide. Flashes of her last encounter with Rodolphus assault her, and she wishes desperately that she hadn’t hidden her wand under the floorboards upstairs again. A _crash_ , and she’s crouched low and moving along the back shelves of the library to where she knows a secret passageway that Gilly sometimes uses is-

The person out in the hall moans. It’s weak, and there’s a gurgling in it that suggests fluid blocking a vital airway. Hermione stops. Over her hammering heart she reasons with herself. Just check- otherwise she’d never-

At first, when she edges around the library door, she thinks someone has dropped a pile of tattered rags on Narcissa’s immaculate carpet. It’s only when the pile _moves_ and moans weakly, does Hermione understand what she’s seeing.

She sprints to the dungeons, and returns, arms full of nearly every stopper and decanter she could reach. She drops them to the side and turns the snatcher over. It’s the handsome one, just as she thought. He’s not so pretty right now though. His throat is _shredded_ for want of a better word. It’s a marvel he’s still alive actually. Hermione cleans the wound, which looks like _claws_ , with essence of kingsweed and hunts around for the skin knitting infusion she’d brewed last week- _there_ \--

With skin covering his larynx again, Eyeliner already looks vastly better. There’s still all that blood though, Hermione knows that she’s covered with it, and who knows how much he bled before he made it here. Thankfully, she’d ignored Bellatrix’s conservative order for blood replenishers and brewed up half a dozen bottles extra. She feeds them to Eyeliner one after the other, watching his colouring return to normal.

Then she sits back, and finally allows herself to exhale a shaky breath.

Eyeliner is coming back around. His eyes move behind his lids, and Hermione briefly wonders whether it would be worth it to slip him a sleeping draught, when licks his lips and mumbles-

“Thanks.”

“What _was_ that?” she manages, gesturing weakly to his healed throat. He’s opened his eyes now, and they’re black, much like Bellatrix’s, only flatter somehow.

“Lupin” He rasps “Bloody werewolves.”

Hermione crouches back onto her heels, all senses on alert. “Did he bite you?”

“No,” Eyeliner closes his eyes again “Scratched me up is all.”

Hermione exhales at that understatement. Of course Lupin wouldn’t sink so low as to infect anyone. She probably just ruined one of his attacks against Voldemort’s forces, but Lupin is alive-

“Scabior.”

“Sorry?” Hermione manages, coming down from her joy and looking at Eyeliner again.

“That’s my name,” He repeats “Scabior. What’s yours?”

“Susan,” Hermione lies “Susan Bones.”

“ _Susan Bones_ ,” Scabior repeats, and Hermione feels uncomfortable on the real Susan’s behalf for how he seems to be savouring it.

He sits up, and Hermione jumps back. She hadn’t known he was feeling so well again. He must have remarkable potion receptors. Seeing her nervousness, Scabior holds up his hands beseechingly.

“I won’t hurt you,” He seems wounded that she’d even think that of him “I’m in your debt Susan.”

When she doesn’t immediately answer Scabior shuffles a little closer. He’s smearing his own blood deeper into the carpet. But he’s earnest, and he winces a little at the movement. That more than anything else relaxes Hermione. So he’s not superhuman after all. His bandaged hand comes to her cheek.

“I ‘ave the great pleasure of owing you my life” Scabiors face is close to Hermione’s. His breath smells like the woodruff in the blood replenishers. “ _Anything_ you need-”

And then, very lightly, lips still moving with promises, he’s kissing her. It’s surprisingly chaste. A cynical part of Hermione thinks that he’s done this before, maybe not the nearly dying part, but the structure that lead up to this not entirely unpleasant kiss, there’s something so _practiced_ in the way his lips capture hers and-

BANG!

Scabior hits the far wall with a thud, and scrambles up, just in time for another flash of red to hit him square in the chest. He howls with pain, and scrambles towards the door only to be hit with another curse, this one forcing him to the ground where he lays screaming and twitching.

Bellatrix advances on him wand held aloft, looking as furious as Hermione has ever seen her. She can count the veins on the other witches’ hand where she’s gripping her wand too tightly.

“You _dare_!” She hisses and Scabior contorts “You dare to put your mongrel hands on _my_ \--” Something horrible happens to Scabiors face and to her horror Hermione can see his potion-knit throat begin to ripple-

“ _Bellatrix_!” She’s thrown herself around the back of the other witch without thinking. Now she feels nothing but Bellatrix’s corseted back against her front, heaving with her uneven breathing. _Nothing is being played dearest,_ the witches words dance back to her even as she wraps her hands around Bellatrix’s waist and whispers “Stop it. _Please_.”

Bellatrix tenses inside her hold, and Hermione is reminded of a party, a wedding, many months ago where she did an equally stupid thing as the one she’s going to do now-

“I’m yours,” She whispers into Bellatrix’s ear “ _Yours_. Nobody else’s.”

Scabior’s screams stop. Bellatrix flicks her wand, and he’s up, scrambling away without a glance back at either of them. _So much for being in my debt_. The front door slams a second later.

Bellatrix, if possible, goes even tenser inside her hold. And Hermione has no idea what to do. It’s very well to say _I’m yours_ and wait for the inevitable to happen, but it’s quite another thing to hold a dangerous Death Eater on the knife-edge between violence and … whatever this is. After another half second when Bellatrix still hasn’t moved, Hermione takes her life into her own hands, leans forward and presses her cheek to Bellatrix’s cheek.

It’s even more innocent than the kiss Scabior gave her. She can barely reach the sharp curve of Bellatrix’s jaw. Then Bellatrix turns. She looks as if she’s about to speak but Hermione’s kiss, briefly straining in empty space, lands on the corner of her mouth instead effectively silencing both of them. Something clicks low in Hermione’s brain and she hurriedly draws back before she’ll – but _oh_ , when she gently kisses to Bellatrix’s lower lip again, and hears the other woman’s soft sigh, it’s there. It’s all there.

 

When she dips her head to kiss Bellatrix’s neck she feels a brief shift in gravity, and they are in a bedroom she’s never laid eyes on. She doesn’t get more of a chance to look around, because Bellatrix is pulling her down onto a dark bed, on top of her. And then doesn’t do anything else.

So Hermione continues as best as she can. It helps that pleasant tingles race right to her heart every time skin touches Bellatrix’s. So she begins to undress, not Bellatrix-- because there is something distinctly hands-off both in other witches’ face and in her whole complicated outfit-- but herself.

Pretty soon she’s down to her underwear, kissing Bellatrix’s hands now, one soft touch for each knuckle. She reaches behind herself for the clasp of her bra and stops. Bellatrix shifts impatiently under her. Hermione feels her face heat up. _What on earth is she doing_ -

“ _Well_?” Bellatrix’s tone is arch, just the same as if she’s waiting for Hermione to hand over a copy of some letter she’d dictated. The straps slip down around Hermione’s shoulders, and she leans down again, cheeks still burning. She doesn’t pause at her underwear. And just like that she’s naked, and straddling a fully clothed Bellatrix Lestrange.

They both look at each other a moment, then Bellatrix reaches up and folds both her hands along Hermione’s hips.

“So soft.” Bellatrix murmurs almost too hushed to hear. Something throbs hard and low in Hermione’s belly. Bellatrix’s eyes are wide, both at Hermione’s moan and at her involuntary roll of hips against Bellatrix’s clothed midsection. She glances between her hands and Hermione’s face, looking almost afraid.

It makes Hermione feel powerful for the first time in months. She even allows herself a slow smile, and licks her lips.

Just like that she’s tipped the scales, and Bellatrix surges up. They’re both sitting up now, Hermione wraps her legs around Bellatrix, and they’re kissing. A flash of pain in her bottom lip and Hermione’s sure that evil bitch has bitten her, if only it didn’t go somewhere deep in her belly-

Bellatrix pushes her down, and palms her breasts, and follows with her mouth. Hermione realises she’s been wasting her hands, just loosely holding Bellatrix to her, and clasps the other woman’s face, bringing her up for another wet kiss. _Okay_ , Hermione thinks tasting the thin metallic flavour around Bellatrix’s tongue, _yep,_ _definitely blood_. She arches up anyway, trying to touch her whole front to Bellatrix’s silk dress. The silk dress that is probably ruined by now. _Good_. She opens her legs more.

Bellatrix is moving against her, pressing her down into the mattress. She breaks their kiss with an audible _pop_ , and leans down to brush her lips along Hermione’s ear. “What game are you playing pet?” she whispers, but Hermione’s too busy kissing along the glorious expanse of neck that has been revealed to her to reply. “Was he your little escape plan…” Little lights start going off behind Hermione’s closed eyes. She moans. Bellatrix manoeuvres her leg in between them. Hermione grinds into it.

“Where you going to _fuck_ him as payment? Did I ruin your little stratagem?” Something throbs hard and fast in Hermione. She pulls Bellatrix’s head down for another kiss as it washes over her. “No, _”_ she breathes _“_ I’m _yours_.” At her words Bellatrix clutches her convulsively and a moment later Hermione feels her relax before collapsing on top of her. _And you are mine_ , Hermione thinks and doesn’t quite know how to feel about it.

They’re both quiet after that. Hermione finds the scratchy silky weight of Bellatrix comforting, and she has a few pleasant little aftershocks to sort through. Bellatrix for her part just seems exhausted. Hermione closes her eyes, and breathes in her perfume.

Surely her brain save all the ways she’s just royally screwed up for later.

***

 

Later turns out to be early evening. Somehow when Hermione wakes up alone in the dark, curled up in what she can only assume is Bellatrix’s bed, naked and kind of sticky, she manages to shut down her brain. Instead she carefully folds the blanket Gilly probably threw over her, gets dressed and even manages to do a bit of snooping.

It’s obviously only a guestroom. While the wardrobe does hold an impressive collection of dresses and corsets (and if Hermione runs her fingers over them a little that’s her business), nothing of great import seems to be stored here. She sits in front of the fire in her own room, and thinks of Ron, and Harry, and Lupin and all the people she betrayed this afternoon.

Neither Bellatrix nor Lucius are at dinner, so Hermione retrieves Tiberius Mandalay’s book from the library, and tucks her knees up to her chest, eating her corned beef sandwich slowly while she reads. Pureblood reasoning is fascinating for its intertwined mess of logical thought and childish fantasy. She’s finished the whole book by midnight.

***

 

Narcissa and Draco return in the late afternoon on Christmas Day.

In the two days between, Hermione has already restocked double the amount of blood replenishers Scabior gobbled down, read three more books on Pure Blood history, devised a better homework calendar for herself and Draco to follow, and seen Bellatrix all of never.

But no matter how hard she works, both nights, she ends up lying awake; feeling the guilt in her stomach solidify into what must be ulcers by now. There was no way around it. The first bit, she could have fobbed off. A gambit gone wrong, a Death Eater in her bed, all neatly wrapped in the supreme logic that it was better to just go along, and live to fight another day.

_But_ _she’d initiated the kiss_ – and it had been… Hermione doesn’t know what it was. Yesterday, she’d made the mistake of relaxing while detangling her hair at her vanity. She’d looked up to catch a glimpse of someone she didn’t know, with the flinty look of a snatcher. The ensuite thankfully was only a few meters away and she’d thrown up all her supper. _That wasn’t her_. She was honest. She wouldn’t be this war’s Peter Pettigrew. That’s not how it went.

There’s a light _pop_ , and Gilly stands in her room. “Begging your pardon Miss,” The elf has a higher voice than Dobby’s. She wonders if Gilly misses him. A lifetime ago, she would have asked. “Madame Malfoy and young Master Malfoy wish to see you in the library.”

“Thank you Gilly, I’ll be there shortly.” Another _pop_.

She pictures Ron again, as she changes out of her stained potions skirt into one of turtle dove silk. His hair was usually the first thing anyone would look at, bright and red and normally uncombed. But Hermione had always been fond of his eyes. They were kind, and… and black? The lanky Ronald Weasley in her mind wavers, to be replaced by Bellatrix, leaning against her study window at Black Manor, the barest hint of a smile playing around her mouth. Something in Hermione’s chest flutters almost painfully. She shakes her head and opens the door.

“We thought you might have them,” Narcissa says briskly. They’re in the library. She’s holding out a set of marbled schoolbooks, clearly expensive, tied together with a thin chord. “It’s getting confusing, you still using the backs of Draco’s old exercise books, and with the amount of study you both have coming up…”

“Thank you.” Hermione breaks in, taking the books from Narcissa’s hands and examining them. The eggshell blue one should do nicely for Hocrux research. “Really.”

Sure, they might not be the best gift she’s ever gotten, but neither are they the worst – the horrible perfume Ron had concocted won that contest a long time ago – but the fact that Narcissa Malfoy is giving her a Christmas present was something last year’s Hermione would have never believed.

Draco is ignoring both of them. He’s fiddling with a hunting mount Blaise had given him for his wand. It looked like a simple muggle sniper gauge to Hermione, but she knows saying that would put him in an even fouler mood than he was already. Apparently Pansy had also been at Blaise’s house for the Christmas Eve party, and ignored him all night.

After Narcissa leaves them for their hour of quiet revising, Hermione glances over to Draco, despite her better judgement. “Alright?” She says, imitating Harry for want of a better way to talk to the sulking boy. He gives her a withering look. “Just piss off Granger.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t even like her really. She’s a troll.”

“Very astute. Now leave me alone.”

But something about Draco, intently studying the cross hairs of his new toy and so very obviously close to tears, gnaws at her. She sits next to him.

“What part of _piss off_ is too complex for your little mudblood brain to handle?”

She lets that one slide. There’s something she’s wanted to find out for ages. Harry had seen it, all through sixth year, but Ron and her had refused. She peers at his face. Handsome, and more pallid than even the winter should get credit for.

“What happened last year Draco? After Dumbledore died?”

He looks at her quickly, then back to Blaise’s gift. His “None of your business,” is sharp and tells Hermione a lot more than he knows.

“They don’t like to talk about it huh? Bellatrix, _your mother_ -”

“I know you scarpered at Lovegood’s.” Off Hermione’s widening eyes, he scoffs, a flush of unnatural rosiness rising on his cheeks “Yeah, I noticed. You were gone almost half an hour.”

It’s a shock. But Hermione gets the distinct feeling that he was saving this gambit for something much better. What happened last year?

“Draco-”

“She’ll get tired of you Granger,” Draco’s voice wavers, but when he meets her eye it’s as close to calm as she’s seen him all year. “Toddle off back to Potter next time alright? There are worse things than dying. Especially when my aunt is involved.”

There doesn’t seem to be very much to say to that which wouldn’t be a lie.

***

“Skirmishes in the West Country – mind that you eat all your eggs.” - is all Narcissa will say when Draco asks her where his father and aunt are over breakfast.

So they don’t see Bellatrix or Lucius for the rest of the month. Hermione does see Scabior though. She spots him from her customary window seat. A few snatcher gangs have assembled on the front drive to deposit caught mudbloods, squibs and blood traitors alike. Rookwood directs them from there. Hermione thinks she spots Dean Thomas’ afro. Scabior is the only one to look up and spot her. He winks.

After New Year, the snow around the manor melts into a grey sludge. It sleets and rains in equal measure. Their studies become harder too. Hermione finds that she’s struggling nearly as often as Draco now. Narcissa works them mercilessly, but where Draco gets to spend another lazy afternoon at his leisure, Hermione finds herself inundated more than ever with potion requests.

She brews Dorian’s Breath, Liquid Warmth, emerald tincture of Thousandfold Voice, and a slew of other specialty potions that would get her an Outstanding N.E.W.T in one session. She just wishes she had more time to savour each success. Or that they were going to people she actually wanted to win.

Soaking in the third floors’ narrow bathroom that night, Hermione tries to brainstorm a new plan. The tub is claw-footed and has a silly eighteenth century charm that makes water lilies bloom at slow intervals across her bathwater. She’s put up her hair, and usually the sharp tug of bobby pins is enough to wake her. But she feels the same. Scattered.

Half-plans and vague Eureka moments float around her mind, refusing to solidify into anything clever. All that comes to her with any certainty is that she wants to feel the press of Bellatrix’s hands again. Hermione wants to surprise her, wants to see her eyes widen, and that raised eyebrow – Hermione ducks under the water. When she remerges the lip of the tub is cold against her neck.

Hermione chews on her lip, thinking of Bellatrix’s anger at finding Scabior touching her. Of her thin lips, and dark eyes. The way it felt to lay under her afterwards. Of the strange advantage the Horcrux fragment gives her.

She takes one further moment to be utterly disgusted with herself, and then begins a new plan.

 


	7. Malfoy Manor - January

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god I am so sorry for how long it took to update. Life has been VERY full for the last year and a bit and I'm kicking goals and taking names, but I will finish this fic if it kills me! (which it won't). SARRY. HOPE U ENJOY.

Since her arrival at Malfoy Manor, Hermione hasn’t given her wardrobe in her room more than a perfunctory glance. She’d sorted out all the non-offensive articles of clothing (evergreen sheath, knee length skirts, a few soft peasant blouses, a cloak for walking, and soft low slippers she wears everywhere except for the dungeon) into the ancient wooden chest at the foot of her bed.

She usually covers everything with her work smocks anyway. They’re the only pieces of clothing she asked for – potions tended to singe holes into expensive fabrics – and they’re the only ones she feels truly comfortable in.

Narcissa had ordered three for her without question. They all appeared one day in November on her bed. They were wool, and had been dyed dark earth colors. It had taken Hermione a week to notice the twinkling silver protection spells stitched unobtrusively into the inside of the hem. Spells against poison. Spells against burns. There was even a tiny lilac-threaded spell against depression. They were signified for her especially. It had given her an odd constricting feeling to think of Narcissa requesting them.

But now – Hermione taps out a nervous rhythm against the dark wardrobe door – for this plan to work she’s going to have to be brave. No worse than that – she’s going to have to be desirable. She empties the wardrobe and divides its spoils into piles on her bed. Then on the chairs. Then on the floor. Narcissa does not mess around Hermione thinks, chewing on her lip, and resisting the urge to just go to bed as she fishes the last pair of silk stockings from the bottom drawer.

There’s enough diaphanous material to dress a dozen teenage witches for a dozen years. She slumps down in the midst of this ocean of fabric, and fingers a puce corset. Right. Might as well start with the worst of it.

Three hours later she’s angling herself to her vanity mirror and resisting the urge to punch her reflection. Dress number twenty-five, which should sit skintight, is loose around her middle and tight under her armpits. Her hair is colorless and frizzy against its obsidian weave. Her legs are nearly glowing in the dark. She feels like an idiot. None of these clothes do anything for her. They just poke and pinch and make her look severe and dour all at once.

Maybe with a bit of lipstick – Hermione pinches her cheeks and pouts her lips experimentally. Great. Now the washed-out girl in the mirror looks mentally deficient as well. Bellatrix will totally go for that.

She flops back on the bed, and stares up at the dark canopy. The house is silent now. Even the rain has stopped. It must be nearing midnight. Maybe this plan was too direct anyway. Well, more direct and reckless than she’d initially assumed. But it’s still the only thing she can think of. Play to your strengths poppet, her Dad used to say. And Bellatrix is her only strength here. Not her brains. Not even her friends.

She closes her eyes.

And there they are. Harry and Ron. They’re sitting next to Auntie Muriel under a floating tarpaulin sky. Ron mumbles something and Harry laughs. If she angles her head like so she can see Ginny dancing with Viktor, her brown eyes on Harry, just behind Mr. Weasley and Molly. Ginny’s dress shimmers in the floating tent. The weight of a book is familiar on Hermione’s lap. It starts to slip and –

She wakes up with a start, alone in Malfoy Manor, her corset pinching her side, and with the beginnings of an idea. Ginny’s dress. It glowed. Ginny glowed. She couldn’t approach Narcissa or Bellatrix’s strange glamour – but Ginny’s happiness? That she could manage a shadow of.

It would be the work of half an hour to brew up a colour leeching potion, and even less to attempt a charm with her wand pieces, but Hermione asks Narcissa anyway. Betrayal, some part of her mind supplies, it would be a tiny betrayal of friendship to not ask her. The clothes had been a gift.

“An interesting choice,” Narcissa says, her eyes only briefly narrowing at Hermione between stacks of books the next morning. It has stopped raining outside and the sky through the windows is pale and blue “But it would be no trouble for Gilly.”

She assigns O.W.L level rune translations for Draco, and, under the guise of flicking through Hermione’s vastly advanced text asks “Do you know what you’re doing Miss Granger?” Hermione nods brightly around the lump in her throat. “Parse the verbs and carry the vowels,” she says. Narcissa’s concerned blue eyes meet hers briefly. Hermione looks away.

Retreating to her room to change after lessons are done, she makes a mental note to thank Gilly as she fingers a dress that is now a bright ivory. Virginal, a snide voice whispers in the back of her head, bit of a false sales pitch isn’t it? She ignores that, and jots down a quick thank you note at her desk. She folds it around a pressed dried flower she found in a library book, and drops it off in the kitchen on the way down to the dungeon.

When dinner rolls around she’s ready. She’s chosen a dress that would make Ron squeak ‘Blimey Hermione!’ And then probably take his cloak and cover her or something. But she’s doing this for him. For them. So he has no right. Imaginary Ron has no right to look so outraged at the transparent cream fabric that barely covers her thighs.  
Nor has he any right to groan ‘No, Mione’ when she paints her lips a dark burgundy, and even bothers with a few sweeps of mascara wand. Her hair she curls up in a bun at her nape. Ron had mumbled once that her skin was very lovely. He’d gone bright red straight after, but still.

It’s mildly embarrassing to see how Narcissa’s eyebrows climb nearly to her hairline at Hermione’s choice in dress. More annoying is Draco’s kick under the table. When she glances at him he’s almost white with shock. “Change into something else!” He hisses under his breath. “No” She hisses back under the cover of reaching for the breadbasket. Lucius just stares at her chest morosely.

She’s ripping up a roll into tiny pieces when Bellatrix arrives. She’s fuming from the moment she walks through the door. Something about Greyback going off-plan with his snatcher team again. “We’ll never catch anyone at this rate. Pincer movement I tell him, I order him, and what does the mutt do?” She throws her cloak at the floor in front of Gilly with so much force, the poor thing actually tumbles backwards. Hermione wonders if that counts as freeing the elf. Apparently not, as Gilly disapparates with a frightened squeak.

Then Bellatrix catches sight of Hermione.

“What the hell is this?”

Hermione shoots up from her seat. Draco is looking at her like she’s recovering from a bad bat-boogey hex. She feels her face go beet red. She tries to calm, brushing the crumbs off her fingers and wetting her lips. She’s never gotten the hang of this alluring thing. And somehow she thinks she might have to work a whole lot harder for this than she did for Cormac McLaggen.

“I –Hello Bellatrix,” She settles for in the end. Not too shy. Not simpering. But uncertain. Bellatrix likes her off-guard. She fingers the hem of her skirt. “I missed you in the potions room.” That comes out huskier than she intended, and with a jolt she realises it’s true. She’s missed Bellatrix everywhere these past few weeks.

Bellatrix’s eyes are dark. She’s wearing a dress that pushes out the pale curve of her breasts. There’s a scratch on her pale neck that Hermione instantly longs to trace with her tongue. Hermione’s suddenly not quite sure whether she’s convincing her. So she says the only other thing that she knows to not be a total lie.

“I tested the new antidotes all myself,” Then when nobody moves she gestures down at herself “And look. Still breathing.”

Bellatrix’s eyes track her movement. Slowly. Hermione feels herself go red. It’s probably clashing horribly with the dress. A dress that isn’t that raunchy really. Pansy Parkinson showed more skin on summer Hogsmeade visits for Merlin’s sake.

“Won’t you sit?” She says to break the uncomfortable silence that’s descending on the table. She looks to Narcissa wishing she’d say something, anything, but the woman is just watching Hermione with something very much like disappointment.

Bellatrix meanwhile is clenching and unclenching her hands. Her anger seems to have spiralled, narrowed and now she’s looking at Hermione with a threatening focus.  
Dinner is tense. Nobody speaks. Draco begins to speak a few times, but does nothing beyond cutting up his steak with more violence than necessary. Bellatrix eats all of two bites before shoving her plate away and snapping her hands for more wine. Hermione finds she can’t meet her eyes. She’s scared what she would find. Now that she’s begun this new plan it feels very unlike their previous incidents. It feels like she’s allowed something dangerous. Something she can’t quite understand.

Hermione excuses herself soon after dessert is served. Her legs feel shaky. She doesn’t dare look up as she leaves the dinner table. When she reaches her room she takes a shuddering breath and leans against her door. Stupid, stupid, stu-

A noise.

She hadn’t left the window open, but the air stirs around her and suddenly Hermione’s very sure there’s someone in the room with her. “Hello?” she whispers into the dark room, edging along the wall and blindly reaching for one of the heavier ornaments on the vanity.

Hermione squeaks when a hand closes around her wrist. A rush of warm magic spirals up her forearm. She tries to focus on the person next to her in the darkness.

“Bellatrix?” she whispers, heart pounding loudly in her ears.

“Were you expecting someone else?” Comes Bellatrix’s cool reply, after a long moment. “Draco has talked about you since first year… were you aiming for a little tête-à-tête with him?”

“What? No!” Hermione splutters, and yanks her arm free. She stumbles into the room, and snaps her fingers for the candles to light. Her robe is hanging on the closet, and Hermione is glad to wrap the thin silk around herself. Then she turns to face the room.

Bellatrix is now reclining on her bed, her eyes dark and unreadable. She’s still dressed for dinner, right down to her black pointed boots. Her arm rests in the dip of her corseted waist. She tilts her head. Slowly. Hermione’s stomach does a funny little half flip.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” She keeps her voice steady. Just like she did at dinner. When she once again tried to manipulate a monster.

“You know I’ve never agreed with Rodolphus on his methods -” Bellatrix frowns “Too medieval for my taste.” She gets up, a flash of bare calf, and moves towards Hermione. The candlelight makes her more beautiful, even as Hermione begins to understand she’s been toying with a tiger.

“All those barbaric ideas about owning someone.” Hermione’s eyes widen, and Bellatrix finally does smile, her painted lips stretching over her ruined teeth. There’s no friendliness in it. “I’ve always found magic works well enough for me.”

Hermione’s back bumps against the wall. She hadn’t realised she’d been retreating.

Bellatrix is so close now that their noses are almost touching. Her breath is warm on Hermione’s mouth. “My pet is so quiet,” There’s a note of wonder in her voice that helps Hermione find hers.

“Please –” she whispers, unsure what she’s begging for, even as her eyes dart around the room. Her plan is working perfectly. But why is she so scared? Bellatrix’s perfume fills her nose. It’s gone wrong somehow. The tone of this meeting is off. They’re not touching, just filling the space between them with their breath. She wonders if she should call out- would the Malfoys come and help her? No of course not- but if she could get one of the heavier candlesticks perhaps-

For a microsecond a line appears between Bellatrix’s eyebrows. They hang suspended in the moment. Bellatrix’s pupils are huge. Then the line smooths. It’s dark in the room, but Hermione gets the sense all the same that a cloud has passed over the sun. Odd, how she hadn’t noticed the light until it was obscured. She shivers. Bellatrix tugs at her dressing gown. Hermione holds on to the edges. Almost gently, Bellatrix unlocks her arms, and pushes the robe off her shoulders. Silk puddles around her feet. The stupid dress barely hides anything. She quickly locks her arms back over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” She whispers “I don’t know what came over me – I’ll-“

Bellatrix puts her hands on Hermione’s hips and steers her over to the bed. To her shame Hermione feels something throb low in her stomach. The back of her knees hit the bed. She stays standing up, determined to be unmoved, determined to weather whatever the hell this was, because this isn’t what she thought. There was no sense of whatever they’ve been tending together, just Hermione’s body and not her mind-

Bellatrix surges forward and suddenly she’s everywhere. Hermione feels her head hit the mattress, but she can’t focus because Bellatrix is alternately biting then sucking her neck, her fingers shifting down over her silk clad hips, to skin and oh, the warmth and their connection amplifies it all tenfold, until Hermione is dizzy.  
Hermione tries not to grab Bellatrix’s waist, fisting her hands in fabric at her own ribs instead. She wants more. She wants Bellatrix to touch her everywhere and fill her with their impossible duality. The War, Harry and even Ron seem like very hazy concepts suddenly. Bellatrix lifts her head from Hermione’s neck, and Hermione realises that last moan must have been her.

“My,” Bellatrix drawls “Nothing but a mudgirl slut after all.”

Down below, her fingers brush over Hermione’s underwear. “How many people have had you had pet?” Her voice is mild, but a finger pushes almost into Hermione through her underwear. Hermione fights not to roll her hips. “How many good little wizards spent themselves inside you?” Her finger, rings and long nails and all, slips around the little stretch of fabric and presses up. This time Hermione arches her back and moans again. She clenches her teeth, and tries to focus.

“None of your business” she hisses. She will not tell this horrible woman about her first time with Ron just before the wedding. It had been sweet. Ron’s clumsy kisses and fervent promises that he would protect her from whatever the war would bring- that he would be hers forever-

Bellatrix pushes a second finger in. Hard. Hermione feels a cold ring coming to rest just outside her. “Did Potter and Weasley share you?” Rather than waiting for an answer, Bellatrix begins to move. Leisurely. Her eyes are intent on Hermione’s face. “Pass you around at family events?” She removes her hand, Hermione gasps, then shoves three digits in all at once. They make a slick, squishing noise. She hadn’t realised how wet she was. It still burns. Hermione turns her head to muffle another moan in her shoulder. Bellatrix wrenches her head up with her other hand.

“I want them to hear you pet.” She hisses then dips to bite Hermione’s shoulder “I want them to know I own you.”

Inside, she curls her fingers, and Hermione throbs and whines in earnest, clenching around those horrible fingers. The jolt of their connection vibrates to the tips of her hair. When she opens her eyes, Bellatrix looks dazed. The spots of colour high in her cheeks might be the most beautiful things Hermione’s ever seen. She’s perfect, Hermione thinks already sinking away from her orgasm, and I’ve sullied something I didn’t even realise we had.

“I’ve missed you.” It doesn’t seem like it’s enough, but there have to be words to turn them away from this path. She touches Bellatrix’s forearm as gently as she dares. The other witches fingers are still inside her. Another piece of who she thought Hermione Granger was seems to crumble and drift away from her. She’s horrified to feel her tears. “I’ve really missed you.”

Bellatrix just looks at her. In the half-light her expression is hard to read. Then she seems to remember herself. She snatches her fingers out of Hermione. It stings and Hermione can’t quite contain her wince. But Bellatrix is gentle even as she wipes her hand on the inside of Hermione’s thigh, then rolls off her. For a moment Hermione is exposed to the cold night air. Then Bellatrix settles next to her and curls one hand around her waist.

“Sleep now pet” she mumbles low into her hair, and for the first time in days, Hermione does.

***

Bellatrix comes to her every night that first week. Sometimes she waits until Hermione falls asleep, then bites and prods her awake. Sometimes she pounces on Hermione straight after dinner, and they don’t even make it to her room. Once, with Bellatrix’s thigh jammed between her legs, Hermione spots Gilly hastily retreating back through a door.

It’s not love. It’s not even sex like the first time. When she feels her clawed fingers moving inside Hermione is reminded most of Bellatrix’s cruciatus curse. It’s pure control. Bellatrix is punishing her for trying to gain a little bit of power. Punishing her for enjoying it, and punishing her for surprising Bellatrix. Hermione privately mourns the death of whatever thread of friendship they’d had before. Of respect.

Hermione never touches her back. At first she tries to keep herself rigid and unresponsive during the entire exercise. Until she realises that will only prolong things. At the end of the week she gives up and lets herself sigh and moan and squirm again. They never kiss again. Hermione’s not sure whose rule that is. It’s only the Horcrux, she whispers to herself like a mantra. It’s only the Horcrux, she thinks when Bellatrix, clutching her like an treasure she’d like to lock up in a vault, finally falls asleep.

And the worst part is she’s almost certain, to Bellatrix, that’s all that it’s becoming.

***

Draco and Hermione are sifting the bare northern hedges for bowtruckles when it happens.

It’s a thing they do now. They spend time together. Outside of Bellatrix mouthing at her neck, her breasts, her heart, all her exercise involves Draco. They could have searched at opposite ends of the park for this assignment, but somehow they’ve once again ended up in the empty garden beds at the north face of the manor, together. The hedge around this side of the house is teeming with magical creatures. Hermione had almost cried for homesickness when a gnome had bitten her knuckle a few days earlier.

“So you’re never going to go back to Hogwarts?” Hermione asks, carefully combing through the hedge, feeling for bites. Her hands are sweaty inside the dragonhide potions gloves she nicked from the dungeons. The day is cold and sunny. There’s a line of sweat forming between her shoulder blades.

Draco snorts. “Not if you paid me” He’s working barehanded a little way down the hedge. He has a better feeling for this. The container next to his foot already has two slight plant-like creatures. She stops and straightens at his words. Her cheeks are warm, and she knows Bellatrix will be annoyed at the twigs in her hair later tonight.

“Why not?”

“As incomprehensible as this may be to a goodie-two-shoes like you, I hated it there.” He winces and straightens up too. “Damn, that one got away.” He squints at her quickly as if she were too painful to look directly at. Like the sun. That’s another thing that has become a habit for them lately. If she gets too absorbed around him she’ll inevitably feel him staring at the new bite mark on her neck. Or at the colorful ring of fingerprints around her wrist. Or at any of the other signs of her nights with his aunt.

“Hogwarts. How could anyone hate going to Hogwarts?” Hermione asks completely dumbfounded, tucking a damp tendril of hair behind her ear, only wincing slightly as she brushes a bruise. “It’s like wonderland for kids –“

“Maybe if you’re a mudblo –” Draco nearly chokes on his next words. The colour drains from his cheeks. For a moment Hermione wonders if he’s finally felt guilty about calling her the familiar slur. But he just keeps getting paler.

“Draco?” She says pulling off her gloves. He’s turned away from her. And pushed up his sleeve. And –

“Oh” Hermione breathes. The dark mark is black and raised against the inside of Draco’s arm. She looks back up to his face. His eyes are wide and frightened.

“He’s calling me” He whines. “What do I do – I thought he was still out of the country – I thought –”

“You have to go,” She says taking the hand above which the Dark Mark is tattooed. She makes her tone as firm as she can. “You have to go to him now Draco” She’s not sure why she’s so concerned about his standing as a Death Eater suddenly. But it tugs somewhere at her stomach to think of Draco, cowardly irritating Draco, who’d only just started putting on weight again, defenseless against the cold, unforgiving malevolence of Voldemort.

“But – ” There are tears in his eyes. She puts her gloved hands on either side of his face. “It will be worse if you don’t come immediately. You know it will.”

“He’ll make me do something- he’ll –” She angles his face up again. “It doesn’t matter Draco. If you don’t go he’ll torture you and you’ll have to do it anyway.”

His face loses the last bit of colour, but he nods sharply and steps back out of her reach. They maintain eye contact until suddenly with a loud pop Hermione is alone.

The walk back to the house is slow. She’s shivering by the end. She has to take two trips to carry all the cages back inside. She sets the bowtruckles he caught carefully back into the hedge. She can’t stand caged creatures anymore.

The manor is eerily silent too. She supposes both Bellatrix and the elder Malfoys got called away too.

So that is how she nearly drops her stack of books when she opens the door to her room. Bellatrix is sitting on her bed looking at her hands in her lap. The afternoon sun casts golden pools of bright light on the carpeted floor. But Bellatrix has chosen to sit in the shadow.

It always hurts something in her chest to see the other woman. Bellatrix’s hair is messy. There’s sand on the hem of her black robe. Wherever she had been hunting Hermione’s friends today smells like brine and smoke. She’s terribly striking. She still hasn’t looked up.

Hermione sits next to her, and, after a long moment, leans into her.

It’s odd. Bellatrix has done things to her that make her blush to the roots of her hair, but the simple act of leaning into her shoulder feels like the first intimate touch they’ve shared in weeks.

Bellatrix’s breath exhales in a shaky whoosh.

“He wants to see you”


End file.
